Out of Africa
by Lady L Shardlake
Summary: Being pulled from a case, Sara is given a seemingly routine case that mushrooms into something much bigger than she could ever have anticipated, stretching the fragile friendship between her and Grissom to breaking point. Pulled into a world of lies, corruption in an international setting unknown to her, can Sara &Grissom find their way &solve the case before something gives. GSR
1. Chapter 1

_**AN: Good day everybody. I've been writing on this for a while, starting when my dog of 17 years died and I couldn't sleep (smacking of Sara's insomnia). I wrote it for myself to deal with my loss and my own sleepless nights. I didn't intend to publish it, but was bullied upon threat of death by my Beta, AlyssC01 . Who knows where I live. The main topic to be revealed lies very close to my heart. This is the first writing that I have done ever, so I beg patience as English is also not my first language. This is dedicated to my all time favorite characters and I truly hope that I do not do them a disservice. And, I'm a full blown GSR fan. ;)**_

_**The time line of this story isn't true to canon. Sofia is already a CSI and sometimes works with the team. The whole team is still together and the relationship between Sara and Grissom is at stale mate. This is set after Season 4. Time line and canon purists, please don't hate me. **_

_**So, without further a due – please read on. I will post once a week on Wednesdays. **_

_**Thank you **_

_**Lady L Shardlake**_

_**PS I own nothing. Please don't sue me.**_

_Chapter 1_

One prepared oneself as much as possible for this job, but every once in a while a case slipped through the defenses and came nestling in your mind like an itch you can't reach. For Sara Sidle those were usually the cases dealing with spousal abuse. Most of the time she could maintain the professional distance required to do the job and only break down once she reached her apartment. The case she was working on had all the hallmarks of what she had come to think of as her problem cases. It was a case where the woman had apparently been beaten to death. Sara had processed the apartment, but really there wasn't much of a mystery as to what took place there. The body was approximately two days old. The coroners had already removed the body, but the smell of blood and decomposing flesh still hung thick in the air, seeming to permeate everything around it. The blood drops from the cast-off told a clear tale, but it was the bloody handprint on the door that really clamped like an iron fist over her heart. The victim had tried to get away, but was wrenched back into the room.

Back at the lab, Sara was just starting work in the lay-out room when Catherine came bustling in.

"Have you seen Warrick?" She barked without so much as a hello.

"No, sorry, I've just got here."

The members of your team really become as close as family. You do the same work and struggle through difficult cases together. It was hard to describe to an outsider. It was a camaraderie you could only get from spending hours on your hands and knees in the sun looking for evidence, or processing the blood spattered clothes of the victims. Not even the cops got as close to the victims as the CSI's did. The coroner would do the autopsy, but then move on to the next case. It was the CSI who emerged him or herself in the life of the victim, and more often than not, the life of the _killer_ as well. You worked with the scum of the earth day in and day out, and the rest of the population you only met on the worst days of their lives. Nick and Warrick were like two older brothers to Sara and Greg a really good friend. One of the few she had. Catherine and Sara had butted heads many times, but she respected the senior CSI, even though she felt that Catherine did not really respect her in the same way.

And then there was Grissom.

To say that things were complicated between the two of them was probably the understatement of the century. Sara was beginning to realize that there was probably never going to be anything more between them than friendship and lately it seemed even that was slipping away. He was actively avoiding her, and appeared very taken with the new CSI on the team, Sofia Curtis. What made it worse though was the fact that she understood.

She was a mess.

Grissom deserved someone better, and really Sara knew she had never been able to compete with the Catherines and the Sofias of the world. That was one of the reasons she worked so hard in college. Meeting Grissom she had been sure that she had found a man who was different, but it seemed she was once again mistaken. She did not regret telling him some of her past that night in her apartment, what she does regret was him seeing her in such a vulnerable state. She hated being a damsel in distress, perceived as not being able to take care of herself.

Catherine and Warrick had been working on a difficult case for the past couple of shifts and Catherine was in a foul mood. Sara made a mental note not to get in her way much during the shift.

Greg was helping out in the DNA lab, as one of the technicians was sick and Sara walked over to him.

"Have you got anything for me yet Greg?"

"Aaaah. My psychic power is becoming more potent. I merely have to think of you and you are summoned to my presence".

Sara smiled. It seemed that these days Greg was the only person on the planet that could make her smile. She was saved from answering by the beeping of the printer as it spat out results.

Picking the paper up Greg hugged it to his chest. "Right, what are these worth to you?" he said giving her a lewd grin.

"Give it here," Sara answered as she snatched the paper out of Greg's hands. "You should know by now that I don't enter negotiations over lab-reports."

"Well, over what will you engage in negotiations? Something like coffee?" Greg shot back with a grin, but Sara was too absorbed with the results. The epithelial tissue she collected from under the victim's nails had a y-chromosome and had seven alleles in the somatic chromosomes in common with the victim. Indicating a close male blood-relative. What's more the DNA was a match to a suspect already in the system. Harold Green. The suspect Catherine was chasing. Harold Green had apparently beaten his sister to death.

_Great, just freaking great. _Sara thought to herself as she went in search of Grissom. He wasn't in his office, and neither was Catherine nor Warrick anywhere to be found. Returning to the lay-out room she continued sorting through evidence. She had asked Greg to compare a sample from her victim to the available samples in Catherine and Warrick's open case as clearly, the two cases were connected.

She had collected bags of rubbish from the apartment. There was a lot of garbage and it took time sorting through irrelevant detritus to find potential evidence. Sara was totally engrossed in what she was doing and jumped when someone slammed a piece of paper down onto the table next to her.

"What the hell Sara? Not enough work of your own so you have to stick your nose into my cases?" Catherine was livid. Sara tried to slow her heart rate and speak calmly.

"No, my murder victim had skin tissue from your suspect under her nails. I couldn't find you or Warrick, so I asked Greg to cross-reverence it with the other samples in your case to look for more connections to mine".

Sara was rather proud of herself for staying so calm, it wasn't one of her strengths.

"Without bothering to tell me?"

The anger seemed to come of Catherine in waves, and Sara could feel her own temper rising to match it. _Wasn't she listening? _

"You were not around so I had thought to save you some time."

They were starting to draw attention but Sara didn't care. What made her even angrier was that she had just found a connection between the two cases, increasing their chances of catching the perpetrator, and Catherine was more interested in starting a territorial dispute. Just as Catherine opened her mouth to retort, Grissom stuck his head in the door.

"What's going on?" He asked

The animosity between the two women was palatable. Sara had her hands folded over her chest and was bristling with righteous indignation, and Catherine exhumed waves of with unbridled fury.

"I found a connection between my case and Catherine's," Sara answered him, not taking her eyes off Catherine.

"The Harold Green case?" He asked, raising an eyebrow

"The very one." Catherine answered in icy tones.

Sighing Sara filled them both in on her case and everything she had done so far. Grissom listened intently to her, his face almost unreadable.

"Does this influence the time-line of your case?" Grissom asked turning to Catherine

"Yes, considerably." She replied. Sara could see she was calming down.

Grissom sighed, almost as if he is regretting it. "Then I think Sara, Catherine should probably take over the case as the two cases are really one"

Sara could feel the heat rising from her chest, and the blood pounding in her ears. She could not believe what she was hearing.

"I can do this Grissom," she almost pleaded, and hating herself for the edge of desperation in her voice. She always had trouble keeping her emotions in check around him.

"That's not the issue here Sara. I need you and Nick to handle another case," he said holding a yellow slip of paper containing the case info out to her, finally meeting her eyes. Sara grabbed the slip and hurried out of the room without another word or a backwards glance.


	2. Chapter 2

_**AN: For any information portraying to any of the topics discussed here, please don't hesitate to ask me. Also, you can find some links in my profile page that might be of some interest. Thank you for the awesome response and for continuing to read this. **_

**Chapter 2**

Driving with Nick to the scene of the crime, Sara was still smarting over having her case taken away from her. Grissom of all people knew how much she hated not finishing what she started. Or was it her past that she revealed to him that had made him bump her to another case, coddling her. This job meant everything to her and if Grissom was starting to doubt her competency, she didn't know what she would do. Nick seemed to know what had happened, the lab had a legendary grape-vine, but he didn't prompt her. She was very grateful to him for that.

The silence was companionable, not awkward.

They arrived at the scene, a seedy dilapidated hotel room that reeked of old sweat and urine. A female victim had been shot multiple times through the chest and was still seated on a stool. The table and another chair in front of her had been overturned and its content scattered all over the floor. An astray lay broken on the floor, spilling its ash onto the carpet, hardly to be noticed amongst the other stains and rubbish. Empty beer bottles and a few shell casings littered the floor and lay amongst money bills.

In the next room was another victim. This time a man, beaten almost unrecognizable. It was brutal.

"When they take each other out, they save us the trouble," the uniform sneered as Sara stepped into the room.

Although she privately agreed, they still had to treat this as any other case. A good scientist did not make assumptions.

"Hi Sara, Nick. Female vic's name was Nomsa Matabane. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right." Brass said as he squinted at the murdered woman's ID.

"Who called it in?" Sara wanted to know.

This part of town was not exactly known for its friendly neighborhood attentiveness.

"Anonymous 911 caller."

"And the neighbors heard nothing?" Sara queried.

"I'll go find out, but don't hold your breath." Brass grinned at them as he left them to the room.

Putting on a fresh pair of gloves Sara started looking around.

"Almost looks like she was sitting and talking when a fight broke out, I don't see any restraints. Wonder if she knew her attacker?" Nick observed.

There were monetary notes lying all over the floor. Sara started photographing them but frowned.

"Hey Nick, do you recognize these?"

She held up a foreign note. It was shorter but broader than a US hundred dollar bill and depicted the head of a buffalo in blue ink. On the reverse side there was a herd of Zebra running in front of a mountain, also in blue. It proclaimed to be R100, but was written in another language.

"Issued by the Reserve Bank of the Republic of South Africa. 100 Rand." Sara read on the bill "What the heck is it doing here?" She passed the note to Nick and looked at the other bills on the ground. Most of them seemed to be USD but she could see some of the other strange blue notes peeking through.

"Well bag them and we'll check it out at the lab," said Nick as he handed her the note back to put in an evidence bag.

Some of the notes were stained with blood drops and Sara found many more bullet casings as well. She was just bagging the last of the notes when David arrived with the coroner's assistants in tow.

"Sorry it took so long guys, traffic is a nightmare." David said as he entered but he was really just looking at Sara as he talked.

"All yours Doc," Sara smiled as she put all the evidence baggies in her kit.

There were lots of other detritus on the floor and she and Nick worked through it methodically in a companionable silence.

In one corner there was a pile of clothes that Sara began bagging after she took some photographs. Under the clothes there was a black leather briefcase but it was locked so she just bagged the entire thing to be opened at the lab with a more controlled environment. Nick was lifting fingerprints, while Sara looked for biological material.

They were just about to leave when Brass popped his head back into the room.

"This might be your lucky night. We caught a suspect a block down trying to sell a gun to a druggy. Has blood spatter of his shirt. Thought you guys might want to have a look."

"I have bags full of 9-mil casings." Sara said as she held up the baggies.

"Dumbass was trying to hawk a 9-mil as it turns out." Brass said with a smile  
Both Sara and Nick looked at each other.

"I love it when they make it easy for us" said Nick with a grin. Sara had to agree, but a part of her suspected that it wasn't going to be _this_ easy..

* * *

Back at the lab Sara dropped the evidence baggies at trace and ballistics. Then she went to one of the empty lay out rooms with the monetary notes. Catherine was nowhere to be seen, for which Sara was grateful.

Sara had had a previous run in with the state department when they rang a sting operation with forged bills, and she wanted to make sure she had all her information ready first before she gave them a call again. She had already looked at all the bills from the US and was just starting on the blue bills when Grissom popped it. Once again Sara could feel a blush rising over her chest. _Why does this man have to affect my so?_ She thought bitterly to herself.

"How's the case going? I heard you found some foreign currency." It was almost as if the prevous altercation over Catherine's case hadn't happened.

"How did you find out about that?" Sara asked as he took a seat on the opposite side and put on some gloves. Watching him as he absentmindedly flexed his fingers doing so.

_Ok, _she thought, _I shall take my lead from him_

"Oh David let me know when you guys find something interesting." he said as he picked up a bill and examined it through a magnifying glass.

"Right," Sara answered as she smirked despite herself. "Well, we have bills from South Africa and also from Mozambique"

"Two neighboring countries." Grissom observed. "I have always wanted to travel to Africa"

"I would like to go to South America," Sara said almost wistfully as she handed Grissom some bills from Mozambique.

Grissom looked at her for a moment before asking: "Any idea how they landed in Vegas?"

"Brass has a suspect in custody, Nick is with him now." Sara answered

Getting up Sara walked over to the furthest end of the table where the briefcase was.

"We also found this," she told Grissom as she took it out of the evidence bag. "I was going to start on it as soon as I finished the bills."

Grissom had gotten up to follow her and looked at the case.

"Do you know what the combination is?"

"That is one of the things Nick hopes to find from our suspect"

As if summoned by her words, Nick walked into the room – looking very frustrated.

"Did you get anything?" Sara asked him, reading the answer from his face.

"He claims he can't speak English, yet we know that is a lie because he tried to sell his piece to a street junky. He refuses to cooperate and just keeps repeating 'layer'. The public defender is just as confused as we are. He clearly has what appears to be blood stains on his shirt, but won't let us touch him. We have sent for an interpreter but we are not even sure what language the guy is speaking."

"Well South Africa has eleven official languages, and if you take Mozambique into account you might as well add Portuguese as well." Grissom told them matter-of-factly.

"Eleven languages?" Nick asked incredulously and Sara just stared. "The guy speaks eleven languages?"

"No Nick," Grissom replied turning back to the briefcase. "But most people in the Southern Africa speak at least two or three languages. This guy's probably no different. Also you are assuming he is from either South Africa or Mozambique yet the evidence only indicates that someone visited one or both of those countries fairly recently."

"Don't get ahead of the evidence, right" Nick said and Sara could see that he was starting to calm down.

"So," he said turning to Sara. "What have you got?"

"Still waiting on Ballistics and Trace, I have also sent DNA samples from the bills to DNA as well as everything collected at the hotel room. The cigarette buds I also sent to DNA. I am waiting for David to page me for the PM. Speaking of which," she said as her pager goes off. Checking that it had indeed come from David, she smiled.

"Keep me updated." Grissom said as the two junior CSI's left together.

"Will do," Sara answered over her shoulder.


	3. Chapter 3

_**AN: Good day everybody. Thank you so much for reading this and sticking with the story so far. This chapter introduces one of the major themes of this story. It is a topic that is very close to my heart and of which I am very passionate. Please feel free to visit mhy profile page for links regarding information. Also, please feel free to request any information on any of the topics. **_

**Chapter 03**

"What do you have for us doc?" Nick asked as he and Sara enter the morgue.

"COD of the female vic was multiple gunshot wounds to the chest. One of which shattered the left ventricle like a balloon, death was instantaneous. No surprises there but here's what is interesting," David said as he held up a stainless steel bowl with a large chunk of the victim's liver in it.

"Look at this"

The liver was swollen with white blotches randomly dispersed giving it almost a mulberry like appearance.

"What is that?" Sara asked as she peered as the strange lesions

"I had never seen anything like this before," David said. "I found something similar in the small intestines. I called Doc. Robbins and he said he thinks they were caused by chronic Schistosomiasis.**"**

"Chronic _what_ now?" Nick asked.

"You mean like a chronic type of worm infection?" Sara asked.

"Yes, impressive Sara," said Doctor Robbins who was standing behind them. "I made some slides for histology to confirm the diagnosis. Both the liver and small intestines show chronic ganulomatous inflammation and I found a few eggs encased in fibrous pockets. I send them to a human pathology lab to be identified but I'm reasonably sure it's Bilharzia. A waterborne disease found in many parts of Africa."

"Like I said, it's a first for me" said David as he held the bowl containing the liver almost reverently. The woman had calluses on her palms indicating that she had worked with her hands a lot. Her toe nails were painted a postbox-red and the edges were peeling. There was just the start of stubble on her shaven legs. Sara felt a pull on her heart strings as she looked at the woman, but shut the thoughts down firmly. The last thing she needed now was to get too involved with another case.

Again.

Grissom must surely be questioning her competency as it was. The man had been brutally beaten and showed various defensive wounds. His right humerus was broken in two places, as was the small bones in his right hand. Sara made a mental note to scrape his fingers for foreign DNA. There were multiple contusions on his head and face showing clear bruising and swelling, clearly antemorte, (just before death). He also had multiple rib fractures and contusions on both his chest and back. Apparently the blows did not stop coming when he fell to the floor. The knuckles of his left hand were also bruised and Sara decided to swab those as well.

She was just finishing taking photographs before she would start collecting evidence when the door opened. A strange woman entered with Grissom close on her heels. She wore a formal grey suit with a while blouse. Her brown hair was short in a fashionable style and she had an expensive looking handbag over her shoulder. One look at Grissom told Sara that she had _not_ waited for permission to enter the morgue. Yet, the stranger stopped in her tracks when she saw the body of the man and a myriad of emotions flashed over her face, but Sara thought she saw predominantly sadness, shock and guilt.

"Excuse me, this is the morgue, visitors are not allowed down here," Sara confronted the woman.

"Grissom why is she here?" Dr. Robbins addressed the supervisor.

The woman was staring aghast at the body, and then suddenly sat down on an empty chair with her face in her hands. "They made him", it was almost a whisper.

"Sara, Doc, this is Agent Scott from Interpol. Apparently one of the victims was one of their undercover –agents," Grissom answered Doc Robbins, meeting Sara's gaze.

"I'm sorry I just barged in on you like this, I just had to be sure" Agent Scott supplied, her voice quiet as she began to get a hold of her emotions.

Standing up, she again looked at the body. She seemed to have aged a number of years in the matter of a few minutes.

"I won't be taking any more of your time, my apologies for the interruption." Turning she left the autopsy room.

Sara hurried after her. "Agent Scott wait. There are some questions that you might be able to answer for us, who is he?"

Agent Scott turned around and looked at Sara, hesitating. Sara recognized the look of professional detachment and calm and realized that if she didn't push, she was going to lose her one chance to get some direct answers. "I understand you don't want us impinge on your investigation, but at least give us something to go on."

Agent Scott sighed deeply and sat on the bench outside the autopsy room. Sara sat next to her and waited.

"I suppose it doesn't matter anymore. His name is Adam Smith. He has been under deep cover for the last 2 years working on animal smuggling between Africa and the far-east. He managed to track some of the king-pins to the States. But all the knowledge he gained he took with him to the grave."

Sara grimaced, knowing that death was the ultimate silencer. "Do you know any of the contacts he was working with? Did he alert you that something was wrong? Was he worried?" She pried gently.

The other woman shook her head solemnly.

"Adam always kept his cards close to his chest. But it doesn't matter. You won't catch whoever did this."

What struck Sara was the total lack of emotion in the woman's voice as she said it.

"Why are you so sure?"

Agent Scott's eyes grew harder as she shrugged, not looking at her.

"Because we have been trying to break up and uncover this syndicate for _years_ without success. These people are too rich and too powerful and they have pull with too many people."

Turning to look Sara in the eye she said.

"We won't win this war"

* * *

Having seen what they could see at the autopsy, Sara and Nick returned to the lab. Nick kept glancing at Sara, looking quite impressed until she lost her patience with him for not telling her why.

"What?" She asked as he raised his brows.

He wasted no time in asking her: "How did you know that in there?" He asked. "You know about the Bilharzia?" "Well," Sara said, trying to sound neutral. "I read when I can't sleep." She shrugged.

"About Bilharzia?" He asked incredulously

"Well it's our job to know stuff isn't it?" She stated becoming slightly uncomfortable under Nick's scrutiny.

She often felt uncomfortable and even defensive when people pried into her private life, or lack thereof, as it turned out.

"You sound more and more like Grissom every day."

Sara punched him on the arm for that but was secretly rather flattered. Nick laughed as he went off in search of Brass.

The woman's words kept repeating themselves in her mind all the way back to the lay-out room. Agent Scott had referred to her work as a war and it struck Sara as odd. It indicated to her that the agent might be too emotionally involved with her case. Something she had intimate knowledge of. Entering the lay-out room she was surprised to find Grissom working on the briefcase. He had left the morgue with Agent Scott and she had assumed he would have returned to his own case by now. She was a little unsure of how to interpret his presence. Was he really interested in the case, or was he checking-up on her?

"Did you find anything probative in the autopsy?" Grissom asked her as she entered, eyes still glued to the briefcase he was trying to open with a variety of metal pins.

"Yes actually, seems our female vic spent some time in Africa. She has what appear to be Bilharzia lesions in the liver and small intestines."

"Really? I'll go take a look." He asked, eyes shining with interest.

Taking out his pager Grissom glanced at it irritably.

"Did David not clue you in on the find?" Sara asked, not quite keeping the humor out of her voice.

Grissom's only response was a lopsided grin.

"I dropped off samples at trace and DNA," Sara replied as she leaned onto the table next to him. "Any luck here?"

"I think I almost got it…" The briefcase sprang open in reward and Grissom looked positively pleased with himself. "Well, let's see what we have here".

Inside the case was something covered in tissue-paper. Gently removing these to be closer examined later, Grissom revealed a strange object nestled on some more tissue paper. It was cylindrical, tapering to a sharp point at the one end. The other end showed tool marks where it has obviously been sawed off something.

"What on earth is that?" Sara asked as she found Grissom's eyes.

"I think it might be a Rhino-horn. Agent Scott did say that Agent Smith was working on an animal poaching case, did she not?"

"Yeah she did. But why leave the case with the Rhino-horn behind?"

"Perhaps the killers did not know it was there?" Grissom suggested as he tenderly lifted the horn out of the case. "We need to confirm it, but I'm pretty sure it's a Rhino-horn. If it is, it's worth a lot of money. "

Looking up at her, Grissom met her gaze. "Might be the be-all and the end-all."

"Shakespeare?" Sara asked, her eyes still glued on the Rhino-horn.

"Macbeth."

_**Beta's Note: Evening everybody. I'm breaking with habit this week and posting Lady S's work on Tuesday (she is unable to due to computer complications). Unfortunately, I'm out of town tomorrow evening and decided to do it sooner rather than later. My apologies for any inconvenience. AlyssC01**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**AN: Again, thank you very much to all who are reading. For any information on animal trafficking or poaching, please feel free to visit my website. If you are interested in any other topics discussed in this, please don't hesitate to ask. My thanks. LS**_

**Chapter 4**

The lab confirmed that it was indeed a horn from a Black-Rhino, _Diceros bicornis_, native to Eastern, Central and Southern Africa. Sara surfed the net to find out more. Hunting or trading them was illegal in the US, as well as in most of the countries where the animals occurred. It was also illegal to import rhino horn to the US as it was CITES controlled. CITES was the Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Using the lab's access, Sara logged onto the CITES database to see if they knew of any trade in Rhino horn in Nevada. If the trade was legal, they would have issued a permit. There was no record of any permit issued to transport pieces of a rhino horn to Las Vegas or Nevada. This meant they were dealing with black market trading. It tied in with the information Agent Scott provided concerning Agent Smith.

Next Sara looked into the uses, or _supposed_ uses for Rhino-horn. It was coveted in the Middle-and Far-East where it was used in a variety of medicines to cure almost everything from a fever, arthritis to erectile-dysfunction. Supposedly, it was endowed with magical power. It was also exceedingly expensive. One pound of the stuff could easily cost you up to $20 000. Talk about motive. Sara found, to her shock, that the black-market on animal trade was a very lucrative business, drawing all sorts of unsavory and seedy characters to itself.

_Maybe this was why Agent Scott described it as a war_, she thought to herself.

Her beeper went off, Bobby from ballistics had results for her, so she got up and quickly went to him.

"Heard you got yourselves a rhino-horn. Nice." Bobby greeted Sara as she entered the ballistics lab.

"Jip, along with a dead Interpol agent. What have you got for me?"

"Well there is good news and then there is bad news. What do you want to hear first?"

Sara sighed inwardly, thinking that it was always the case.

"Let's have the good news first then."

"All righty, the bullets retrieved from your female vic matches a gun already in the system. But the _bad_ news is that the guy the gun in registered to is in the slammer."

"No," Sara said surprised. "Really? How's that possible?"

Bobby shrugged, thinking that the how was usually Sara's job.

"Guy probably dumped it before he got arrested."

"Great," Sara added sarcastically.

"Ready for the _really_ bad news?"

Sara blinked at him. "You mean that wasn't it?" She asked incredulously

Bobby gave her an apologetic grin.

"The 9-mil you all collected is a match to the bullet casings, but not to the bullets from the vic. The bullet casings you gave me came from two different guns."

"Marvelous." Sara said with a sigh.

"You are looking for another 9-mil. Sorry." Bobby said as he sat back down again.

She mustered up a smile to thank him for his effort as she left the lab. "Thanks anyway Bobby."

He grinned at her, though he still managed to look apologetic over the news. "Sure thing"

Leaving the lab, Sara was thinking that she should go talk to the chump whose gun was used in the murder and was deep in thought when she nearly ran into Greg.

"Sara, _great_ I was just coming to find you." He looked pleased to see her.

"Please tell me you have good news?"

"_There is no good news or bad news, only news,_" Greg responded in what he thought was his mystical voice.

"Yes Master Oogway, let's have it" Sara said holding out her hand.

"You learn fast grasshopper."

Sara smirked and looked at the results. The foreign DNA under the Agent Smiths's fingernails was male. What's more, there were two donors. That meant they were looking for two suspects.

Sara went in search of Nick. Surely they must have found someone who speaks the same language as the suspect by now. Passing the break room she spotted him.

"What's up partner?" She said as she sat down on the empty chair next to him. "How is our linguistics master?"

Nick gave her a pained look

"Man, I have never had to run around at the beck and call of a suspect before like I had to do now."

Sara gave him a sympathetic look.

"Going on the nationality of the bills we found, I contacted the nearest South African Consulate." Nick started to explain his predicament. "They are in LA. They were very helpful and one of their aides is flying in. He should be here in an hour or so. In the mean time, I contacted the language and linguistics department of Western LVU, but they don't have anyone schooled in the African languages."

Sara smiled at his resourcefulness. She quickly filled him in on what she had managed to find so far. The man that the gun used in the murder was registered to Andrew Mortimer, who was now serving time in Corrections Department of Las Vegas. Both Nick and Sara decided that it might be worth questioning the man as to the whereabouts of his registered weapon. Nick left for the airport to go pick-up the South African diplomat, while Sara went in search of Grissom.

* * *

She could hear voices in his office, but the door was open so she strode in. Sofia Curtis was sitting on Grissom's desk, facing away from the door. Although Grissom was leaning away from Sofia, his eyes sparkled with merriment.

Or so it seemed to Sara.

They broke off their conversation as Sara entered, and she had the distinct feeling that she had just interrupted something. Sofia got up as if to leave but hesitated, looking at Sara's face for direction. Sara felt torn in two whether to tell the woman to stay and continue her chat, or to get the hell out. Upon seeing the emotions on her features, Sofia made the decision for her.

"Well," she said and smiled politely. "I have work I need to do. We'll continue later Grissom, thank you.." She said and left without another word, leaving them in an awkward silence.

Sara turned back to Grissom, seeing that the merriment on his face was gone. Instead, it was replaced with what appeared to be almost painful concern as he silently regarded her. It made her feel awkward and sad for a reason she couldn't quite explain to herself. In order to hide her discomfort, she quickly filled him in on the case though she wanted to do nothing more than bolt from the room and go and compose herself in the changing rooms.

"So I'm heading over to Corrections Department, I think this Mortimer guy is as good a place to begin as any," she finished off as she was turning to leave. She had her back to him before he could reply and started to stride out, not wanting to give him the opportunity to answer.

But Grissom either did not get the message, or he chose to ignore it, for he picked up his jacket as he stood up and began pulling it on.

"That's a good idea. I'll come with."

She stared at him for the longest time, unable to interpret his actions. Did he _really_ have so little confidence in her work that he felt the need to hold her hand around every turn? Realising that he too was staring at her, waiting for her reaction she turned on her heel and nearly fled the room. At the door though she paused, realizing that she had to say something.

"I'll meet you at the car."

* * *

Driving towards the prison, the silence in the car was almost unbearably, the atmosphere so thick it could've been cut by a knife. Sara pretended to be studying the coroner's report in front of her, but she was keenly aware of the man next to her. He didn't look or speak to her, respecting her need to focus on the report, but his lack of doing so was even worse than staring.

The drive seemed to take an unordered amount of time, though in reality it couldn't have been more than half an hour.

Silence still reigned as they entered the building and started through the procedure they needed to see the inmate.

They were issued into a sterile room with a single steel table and chairs. Sara and Grissom sat on the one side and waited for the inmate to be brought in. The man was two years into serving a 15-year sentence for armed robbery. No doubt he would co-operate in the hope of getting an earlier release.

Or so Sara hoped.

The man ushered into room was clean shaven and bald with a tattoo extending the left side of his neck stopping under his jaw. He studied Sara with undisguised lust and lasciviousness. She sighed inwardly. She had expected it, and had mentally prepared herself for it, and really it wasn't her first rodeo. But, having her clothes mentally stared off of her body was still exhausting to cope with.

"Do you recognize this weapon?"

Grissom opened proceedings by placing a photo of the missing 9-mil in front of the inmate, one that Sara had found in the man's old case file. She was surprised at the controlled anger in Grissom's voice, far beyond what she would have expected from just asking a suspect where his gun was. This man wasn't even involved in the crime they were investigating. Sara resisted the impulse to look at Grissom. _Why is he so angry all of a sudden?_ Mortimer sat back in his chair and continue running his eye lazily up and down her torso.

"I might have seen it before. Was rather a while ago I'm afraid." He spoke to Sara, ignoring Grissom.

Deciding to play his game, at least so far as it would allow them to further the case she asked.

"Do you know where it is now?"

"Oh my memory is rather whimsical these days, you know"

"Well I just thought I might have a nice word or two with the DA, about your case"

"That's not exactly what I had in mind" Mortimer said winking at her.

Grissom shot up from his seat. "Right, that's it. Let's go"

Grissom grabbed her arm and all but pulled her up. Sara looked at him and was surprised by the venomous look in his icy blue eyes as he stared at Mortimer.

"Fine Professor," Mortimer drawled shrugging his shoulders and probably seeing his only chance of getting a lesser sentence slipping out of the door. "Just having a bit of fun. I sold it just before I got nabbed."

"To whom?" Grissom snapped, still keeping his grip on Sara's arm.

"Guy called Big Rex, ran with the Vipers. Got a real good deal actually."

"Where was this?" Grissom snapped

"Can't really remember Prof. Ask me nicely." Again he directed it at Sara.

"No I think we got what we came for," Sara said as she led Grissom from the room, feeling him seethe next to her.

"Oh come on. You pulled me from my yard time and everything, at least make it worth my while." The prisoner moaned after them but to no avail.

The guard at the door buzzed the two CSI's out. They made their way out of the building. Sara held her pose as best she could.

Once outside though, she turned on him.

"What the hell Griss? What was that about?" She planted her feet and crossed her arms in front of her chest. Grissom stood facing her, with his dark glasses keeping his eyes hidden from her.

"I don't appreciate my team being disrespected." It was a lame excuse and Sara could see that he knew it too.

"I don't need you to protect me, Grissom. I can take care of myself."

Sara turned away and got into the car, missing the look of hurt and anguish on Grissom's face.


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N: **__**Thank you so much for reading and giving this story a chance. The conversations between the South Africans' are mainly in Afrikaans, but I have provided the English transcript for convenience sake. I'm not very good at doing voice-overs so I apologize if the words don't match the lip movement. **_

**Chapter 5**

The ride back was equally tense. And neither party spoke to each other.

Sighing Sara took out her cell and called Brass, filling him in on their progress. He said that he'd have a talk with the gang-unit to find out what he could about the man calling himself Big Rex. He promised to phone back but to Sara, the conversation didn't last nearly long enough as it plunged the car back into that tense silence that had stretched around them since they left. It stretched all the way to the lab where they entered the silence. Sara was glad that she could take a quick detour to the women's restroom. Entering a cubicle and closing the door, she dropped her face in her hands and indulged in a few moments of self-pity. She felt emotionally drained. She needed to get more sleep and she knew it.

Her beeper informed her that Trace had some results for her. Steeling herself to face Hodges, she walked over to his domain.

"Grissom says I should tell you that the foreign substance on the cigarette bud is chalk. The kind used on pool sticks." Hodges started in his usual condescending manner.

Not in the mood, Sara gave him a blank look. "I dropped the cigarette bud at DNA. How did you get it?"

Hodges hardly seemed to notice her tone. "DNA noticed some foreign substances. You probably missed it. So they kicked it to me."

Sara ground her teeth as to stop herself responding to that.

"You told Grissom first?"

"Well he _is_ the boss around here."

"Anything else?" Sara asked tensely and hated the way he grinned self-righteously.

"Isn't that enough?" Not bothering to reply, she left the lab and was still fuming when she spotted Doc Robbins coming towards her. For him she spared a brief smile and greeted him politely.

"Hi Doc. What are you doing here?"

"I'm bringing those Bilharzia slides for Grissom to have a look. So I thought I might as well bring you this." Doc Robbins said as he held out a plastic bag containing some keys and a piece of paper to Sara.

Smiling at his thoughtfulness, Sara gratefully accepted the bag.

"Thanks Doc."

"Any time."

One of the keys on the bunch was clearly a house key, another appeared to be a safe key and the other an even smaller one. Perhaps to a locker or a post-box.

Sara swabbed the keys for any trace evidence, hoping to find out where they had been. The flat edges she scanned for fingerprints, but found only partials and smudges. The partials she sent to Jacky at the finger-print department. No doubt they would match Agent Smith but there was no harm in checking.

She picked up her phone and dialed Agent Scott's number. It was answered after a few rings.

"Agent Scott." The voice on the side sounded tired and Sara felt a spark of kinship towards the woman, thinking that neither of them had the easiest of jobs.

"Agent Scott, this is Sara Sidle from the crime lab." She said quickly and waited for any kind of response. When there was none, she continued quickly. "We met earlier. Sorry to bother you, but do you know the address where Agent Smith stayed? We found some keys belonging to him."

There was a pause as Agent Scott processed the information. When she replied, her tones were more clipped but Sara was sure it was to hide her tiredness and emotional anguish over her dead agent.

"No unfortunately not." She didn't bother with a greeting. "But his car had a GPS tracking system in it. Maybe you could use that."

"His car? Can you please give me a description?" Sara asked as she drew a pen and a piece of paper towards her.

"Sure, it's a blue Ford Focus. Gimme a moment to get you the number plates, if I have it." Sara waited patiently as there was a rummage on the other line. "I think the plates are Nevada 018-NNB"

After ringing off, Sara called Brass. He said he would send a couple of uniforms to the hotel and the surrounding area to search for the missing vehicle.

"I also spoke to the people of the gang-unit," Brass continued. "Big Rex is well known to them. According to them, the Vipers derive a lot of their cash by dealing in illegal firearms. The gun used in the shooting was relatively non-descript, any-one could have bought it."

Sara tried hard to hide her frustration as she prepared to ring off. "Great. Thanks Brass"

"Anytime." The line went dead.

_At least they had a suspect in custody_, Sara thought to herself. But, that left another suspect out there.

She was about to start working again when her phone rang.

"Hi Sara." It was Nick. "I'm at the PD with a South African. You wanna come watch?"

If it got her out of the lab and away from the chance to run into Grissom again, Sara would take the opportunity gladly.

"Sure, I'm on my way."

* * *

"Kobus Gertenbach"

The giant of a man held out his hand for Sara to shake.

"Sara Sidle" Sara shook his hand and was unsurprised by the firmness of his grip "Pleasure to meet you"

"Pleasure's all mine ma'am."

Kobus Gertenbach was big man, towering over Nick. It seemed his clothes could barely contain him, though they sat very well on him. He had straw blond hair with kind light blue eyes that danced with mischief. His face, neck and hands were deeply tanned, almost red, as if he spent most of his time outdoors. It served to accentuate his eyes even more. There were a few scars on his hands showing up white against the browned skin. He carried himself with a lightness common to large men.

"I hear you guys have one of our boys in a spot of trouble." His English was good but with a heavy South African accent. It sounded almost Australian to Sara's ears.

"We want first dibs on prosecuting him," Brass said as he joined them.

"Hey, personally I feel you should do the time where you did the crime. But let's leave the lawyers to sort that out. " Mr. Gertenbach answered putting his hands up defensively, but his face betrayed his humor. "Anything in particular you want me to ask our boy in there?"

Sara and Nick glanced at one another, weighing up how much they should tell this man. It was still an active investigation.

"A woman was shot and a man beaten to death in a hotel room," Brass supplied for them. "This bozo was trying to sell a gun not even a block from the scene. Ballistics confirmed that it was the gun used in the murder. Plus your boy was wearing a shirt covered in blood." "I'll be doing the talking, we just want you translate. We gave the suspect a public defender, so you'll probably have to translate for him as well."

"Right, gotcha." Gertenbach grinned and Sara couldn't help but like him. "How do you know he's South African? No don't worry, I not trying to pry into your investigation. Just curious. I gather he pretends not to speak English? I can't speak all eleven languages but I can manage in a few of them." Gertenbach motioned to Brass. "After you then."

Brass led the way into the interrogation room followed by Nick and Gertenbach, who almost had to duck to enter. Sara watched from behind the one way glass, glad not to be in the crowded room. She had to admit, Gertenbach made an impressive figure. The stool was almost too small for him. And the room seemed very full with the suspect, the lawyer, the two investigators, the uniform standing guard and Gertenbach. The suspect seemed unimpressed by the new arrival and was still wearing a self-satisfied condescending grin.

"Good evening, I'm Jim Brass and this is Nick Stokes from the crime lab. The person next to you is John Hunt. He is the public defender assigned to your case. This, I have no doubt, you already know. Over here we have Mr. Kobus Gretenback" Brass stumbled over the pronunciation.

"Kobus Gertenbach." said and started speaking in Afrikaans, translating Brass's words. The man's yaw dropped. Clearly he had thought it would take longer to get a translator. Again he feigned ignorance. Gertenbach saw this and smoothly switched to another language. Zulu. The suspect's eyes grew even wider. Gertenbach smiled, and he reminded Sara of a cat toying with its prey. Again he switched languages and used Xhosa. The strange clicking noises filled the interrogation room and Gertenbach must have hit a nerve in what he said, for finally the suspect barked something at him that didn't seem polite at all.

"Right, what do you want to know?" Gertenbach asked, turning to Brass.

"Let's start with his name."

With Gertenbach translating for both sides, the interview could finally proceed, though haltingly. Gertenbach for one seemed to enjoy it immensely, till Brass started asking questions about the murder. Sara could see the anger rising in Gertenbach's face as the suspect confessed and nonchalantly described the crime with rough gestures from dark, cuffed hands. Gertenbach's face became steadily redder as the interview progressed and his English more heavily accented, but he kept his composure.

"What can you tell me about the black suitcase we found in the hotel room?" Brass asked.

The suspect, Sipho Nkosazana, visibly paled, even before Gertenbach translated the question. He put his face in his hands and mumbled something.

Brass and Nick looked at Gertenbach.

"He said _'it was there the whole time'_, he also said _'I'm dead'_, along with quite a few swear words. We have a lot of those. I can translate if you want but I'm afraid English won't do it justice".

Brass tried to pry to get some more information out of Mr. Nkosazana, but he had clammed up. His lawyer then said that his client had given them what they came for and that the interview was over.

Outside Gertenbach was more somber that he had previously been.

"What's in the case?" He asked when he saw Sara again. "Sipho looked like he'd seen a ghost when you mentioned it."

Again Sara looked at Nick before answering carefully. "A Rhino-horn."

Gertenbach shot of a string of what clearly had to be swear words that started with the word '_Bliksemse'_. He did the funky phone dance as he patted his pockets for his cell and finally found it in his breast pocket. "There is someone you should talk to," he told the watching investigators as he searched for a number then brought it to his ear and waited for the ring tone.

On hearing the voice on the other side of the line answering, his face lit up.

"_Wollie, howzit, howzit. It's Koos?_ Gertenbach spoke in Afrikaans and although Sara could hear the words on the other side quite clearly, she didn't know what to make of them.

"_Koos! Good grief how are you man? How's the States?"_

"_Lekker man lekker. The beer takes like piss and the steaks suck. Budweiser is aptly named for bathwater." _

Sara could hear the booming laugh on the coming over the line

"_How did the Blue Bulls do against the Cheetahs?"_ Gertenbach enquired

"_Beat them 23-25. Played well for it too. Cleared the break-off nicely, took a few of their line-outs. I think we have a real shot at the Currie-Cup this year." _

"_That good to hear. Listen Wollie, I'm in Vegas."_

"_You lucky devil." _

Smiling Gertenbach continued. _"Local police are investigating a murder, and came across some Rhino-horn."_

"_Fokket ne?"_

"_My sentiments exactly. Do you want to talk to investigators over here?" _Gertenbach asked

"_Yes if I can please"_

"_Hold on. I'll put her on."_ Gertenbach held out his phone to Sara. "This is Willem Wolmerans; he heads up an anti-poaching unit of the South Africa Police Department. Maybe he can help you if you want."

Sara took the phone, which looked puny in Gertenbach's hand.

"This is Sara Sidle. Am I speaking to Mr. Wolmerans?"

"Please call me Wollie," came the answer of a deep male voice. "How can the SAPD help you?"

"We have a suspect in custody at the moment, a man called…" Sara looked at Gertenbach

"Sipho Nkosazana."

"…. Called Sipho Nkosazana. Do you know him?"

Sara heard Wollie Wolmerans whistle through his teeth. "That is one of our main suspects. What do you have him in for?"

"Murder."

"A-HA. Lekker man, lekker!"

Sara was nearly deafened by the jubilant cry over the line before the man got himself under control and got back some semblance of professionalism.

"Miss. Sidle, Sipho Nkosazana is an extremely dangerous individual, and if you have the means to take him off the streets permanently, then make sure you do. You will be doing the world a _huge_ favor. He usually works with his half-brother John Nkosazana. John is the mastermind behind the schemes and Sipho is usually the muscle. Sipho isn't the sharpest pencil in the case. I doubt he can find his own arse without a map. Begging your pardon ma'am."

Sara smiled to herself. Usually she hated the fact that men treated her differently than they would a male colleague, but she almost liked the painful politeness of the two South Africans.

"We haven't found John, we had no idea he existed. But we are looking for a second suspect."

"Bets are John is your man. Listen, give me your email address and I'll send you all I have on the Brothers Grimm." Wollie Wolmerans offered.

Sara gratefully accepted and gave him her email address. Wolmerans gave her his cell-phone number, telling her to call him anytime she needed help.

"Remember to replace the 0 at the start of the number with +27, that's the code for South Africa."

Again thanking Wolmerans for his help, Sara passed the phone back to Gertenbach. Nick took Gertenbach back to the airport; he had also given his contact information to Sara and said in a manner that bordered on flirting that she could call him any time as well.

"What do you think?" Brass asked Sara as they walked back to the lab.

"Well Sipho looks good for it, but we still need find his brother." She answered

"I meant about the big guy," Brass asked. "Think we can trust him? Seems convenient that he knew exactly who to call."

"I think so; he did help us a lot, and put us in contact with the South African Police."

"For whatever that's worth, they don't have a good reputation you know. I'll just make a few calls. Check the validity of this Wolmerans character."

Brass's phone rang then with some good news. The uniforms had found Agents Smith's car and was towing it back to the lab.

Sara went to get something to eat while she waited for the car. Then, when the call came to tell her that it had arrived, she went to put on some overalls and headed to the garage.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

The car clearly doubled as an office. Empty fast-food wrappers lay discarded all over the place. But there was something deliberate about the mess, like it was staged.

_Perhaps it was part of the character he was playing,_ Sara thought to herself. She bagged everything anyway then went to lie on the wheeled cart so that she could remove the GPS tracker device from underneath the car.

It was awkward and she was getting seriously dirty when she felt someone gently tapping her foot with theirs. She slid out from under the car and stared up at Grissom. For a moment, nothing happened then they both started to blush as Sara scrambled to her feet quickly. Grabbing a towel she began wiping her hands, effectively spreading the grease more evenly.

"This is Agent Smith's car," she began quickly before he could say anything. "I'm hoping the GPS device will tell us where he was recently, maybe track down the address to go with the keys Doc Robbins found. I bagged everything in the car, but it seems to be mainly trash. I also found a half eaten chocolate bar under the front passenger seat. I'm hoping to get some DNA off of it."

Sara knew she was blabbering and over-talking, something that only happened around Grissom, yet was unable to stop herself. When she took a momentary break to breathe, Grissom interjected.

"How did the interview go?"

In processing the car, Sara had almost forgotten all about it. She quickly filled Grissom in on what they knew. He was especially interested in Sara's account of the South Africans.

"So it's very likely that our second suspect is this John Nkosazana character?"

"That's how it's looking yes.," Sara said as her beeper went off.

"Were you planning on telling me that your team is investigating the death of an Interpol agent Gil?"

The voice of Sara's least favorite person in the lab startled both CSI's and they turned to find Conrad Ecklie standing behind them.

"I'll just remove that GPS device" Sara said, indicating with her thumb the vehicle behind her. Grabbing some more tools she went back to it, effectively avoiding the conversation.

"Come to my office and I'll fill you in." She heard Grissom sigh as he lead Ecklie from the garage.

Sara took her time removing the GPS as she did not want to run into Ecklie on her way to the woman's bathroom to change out of her overalls. The further she managed to stay away from Ecklie, the better. Finally freeing the device, she dropped it off at the computer lab and headed for the bathroom.

She passed Sofia and Catherine, and smiled a greeting. They smiled back, and Sara became acutely conscious of her own dirty and haggard appearance. Catherine always managed to look perfectly groomed, even after coming off a double shift. Sara, on the other hand, often managed to rumple her shirt on her way to her car from her apartment. She took a quick shower and headed back to the computer lab.

Archie had already downloaded the information from the GPS and could provide her with a few possible addresses that Agent Smith frequented in the last few months. The address that crept up most often, 320 Alpine Lane, was probably his home address during his mission.

She used one of the computers to access her email account, and saw that Wollie Wolmerans had already made good on his promise. She wasn't surprised to find the Nkosazana brother's on the top of the list. What did surprise her was that Wolmerans had included their DNA-profiles as well as their fingerprints in his file. The man was nothing if not thorough. She was also surprised to see that both brothers had already served time in a South African jail for minor offenses. She made a mental note to ask Wolmerans why they were released.

Leaving Archie to upload the new information into the system, she phoned Brass to tell him about the developments and the address she had found. He told her to grab Nick if he was back from the airport and wait for him in front of PD.

* * *

At 320 Alpine Lane, Sara and Nick waited for Brass and the uniforms to clear the place, before stepping in to have a look. The apartment was painfully neat, reaffirming Sara's feeling that the mess in the car was part of Agent Smith's persona. One of the things the CSI's were very grateful of finding, was Agent Smith's laptop. Sara felt confident that it would contain a wealth of information regarding the poaching syndicate Smith was investigating. They also found a few letters addressed to a PO Box. The letters was addresses to Edward Casey. Sara realized she never asked Agent Scott what Smith's persona was. She mentally chastised herself for it, and resolved to phone the woman as soon as they were done here. The rest of the apartment revealed almost nothing. Even the trash cans were empty. They couldn't find a safe.

* * *

Back at the lab Sara dusted the laptop for fingerprints and then handed it over to Archie. Her beeper went off. Summoning one Rosalind Franklin. Sara grinned to herself and went to the DNA lab.

"I think you have way too much time on your hands," Sara told Greg as she reached the DNA lab.

"I serve at your pleasure my lady," he replied with a cheeky grin

"Let's have it then," Sara held out her hand.

Greg smiled at her, then started: "Well the blood on the bills was a match to your female vic. No surprises there. But I did compare the profile of our unknown male suspect to the profile of John Nkosazana supplied by our friends in the Rainbow Nation. And it's a match. I would probably like to confirm his profile. But it matches our sample perfectly. Also the DNA on the chocolate bar you found in the car. Also a match to John Nkosazana. "

"Well it confirms that they knew each other. Thanks Greg."

Sara turned to leave, her mood fairly light, the case was proceeding nicely. But Greg called her back.

"Grissom caught some real flack from Ecklie for allowing you work this job," he said softly

"Ecklie said he wanted someone who respected authority on such a high profile case. Apparently Grissom said he had full confidence in you." Greg fell silent and watched Sara closely.

Sara felt her optimistic mood dissipating and opening a few cracks.

"Thanks Greg."

"Just keep your head up. You know where to find me," he said.

Sara gave him a tight smile and headed back to the computer lab. It wasn't long ago Sara was cited for subordination and she still smarted over it. It made her feel unbearably tired to think that she still had to fight to prove herself, even after years of working in the lab. Her solve rate was better that anyone's and she knew it. The fact that Grissom vouched for her made her feel grateful and uneasy at the same time. Surely her work could speak for itself?

"Perfect timing" Archie interrupted her thoughts as she returned to his work space. "I'm just about to crack Agent Smith's laptop."

Sara took a seat next to him, and watched the progress bar on the screen slowly reach 100%.

"And voila!" Archie said. "Right, what do you want to know?"

"See if you can get the names of the syndicate he was investigating and cross-reference it with the data from South Africa."

Archie was just beginning typing away on the keyboard when a red notice appeared on the screen:

**Access denied. User blocked**

"Wow," Archie exclaimed, lifting his hands away from the keyboard.

"What just happened?" Sara felt her stomach clench.

"I think we were identified by the cloud as was kicked out of the system."

"Um, in English please."

"Basically we accessed Interpol's server, and it knew it wasn't Agent Smith. So they kicked us out."

"So we can't get access to the information on the laptop without going through Interpol?" Sara asked exasperated.

"I'm afraid so," Archie replied apologetically.

Sitting back Sara ran her hand over her eyes. She tried Agent Scott's cell but got no answer. She sighed in frustration. They had a possible address for the PO Box and Nick was checking that out. Sara opened the file sent by Wolmerans and started to cross reference their info with what they had on their system. She was surprised to find that they had some people of interest in common. It looked more and more like they were dealing with an international syndicate, rather than an isolated incident.

"What the hell Sidle? Do you really care so little for the image of the lab that you would jeopardize our team by your actions?"

Sara was in the process of jotting down names for Brass to check-up and jumped with fright as Ecklie basically screamed in her ear. She turned round in confusion, unsure what she did wrong this time.

Finally finding her voice, she tried to speak levelly, fighting for calm. "What are you talking about?"

She could feel people all around stopping what they're doing to watch and listen to a piece of office theatre.

"I just had a snotty call from Interpol," Ekclie informed her with a sneer. "Apparently someone in this lab tried to hack their main server and they're pissed."

Realizing what had happened, and the simple explanation that could explain it, Sara felt her hackles rising. It was just like Ecklie to favor an open confrontation without bothering to find out what happened first. What infuriated Sara more was the fact that Ekclie seemed to be enjoying this.

"Well since you're the one working the dead Interpol agent's case, and pulling a stunt like this is completely within character for you, I can only assume it was you that tried to hack their site"

"Actually sir, I tried to get access to the dead agent's laptop," Archie piped in.

Ekclie shot him a dark look. He opened his mouth to say something, but Sara cut across him.

"I asked him to do it," her voice dripping with anger and her tone bordering on insubordination, but right now she didn't care.

"We're following evidence in a murder investigation. We had no intention of 'hacking' Interpol."

"We will deal with this formally later. Don't think you can wangle your way out of this one." Ekclie snapped and he turned to leave.

Sara sat back down, catching one of the technician's eyes from across the hall. The woman immediately broke eye contact and looked away. Weariness crashed over Sara and she realized she felt more tired than she ever had in her life. She suddenly felt very, very cold. She fled, with as much dignity as she could muster, to the CSI-change rooms. She felt sure she was fired. But she hadn't done anything wrong, but she knew Ekclie had been chomping at the bit to get rid of her for a while now. Sitting with her face in her hands, Sara was startled when someone sat down next to her. Looking up she was both surprised and dismayed to find that it was Grissom . His eyes were kind and concerned.

"We didn't know accessing Smith's computer would be picked up at Interpol, Griss, I swear."

_Why do I always feel that I have to justify myself to him, _Sara thought miserably.

"I know. I never thought you did. Sara, most of the team already went home."

"Nick is with Brass to track down the PO Box."

"No, Nick went home to get some sleep. As you should do. We can pick this up next shift."

Sara looked up at him. "Your still here, really Griss there are still too much to do."

"I'm also leaving; I was just making sure that you do as well."

She hated to admit it, but she was exhausted. She knew it must have shown on her face as he got up. "I'll walk you to your car".

Only then did she notice he was wearing his jacket and already had his briefcase with him. Sighing she relented and removed her stuff from her locker. She had a few letters that got sent to the lab, and stuffed those in her bag with her other stuff. Grissom stood by watching her. Turning around she found him looking at her with a funny expression on his face. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then clearly thought better of it and turned to lead the way. It was so typical of the weird thing between them. Full of stops and starts. Every time Sara thought that he might finally say something, he would dart back behind his walls. They walked in silence all the way to the parking lot. Sara wanted to contribute all of the heaviness in her heart to her exhaustion, but her mind knew better.

"See you in a bit," Sara said walking quickly to her car, not permitting him time to speak. She was barely holding her emotions in check as it was. He stared after her till she drove away, then he signed and slowly walked to his own vehicle.


	7. Chapter 7

_**AN: The next chapter will be posted Sunday evening. Thank you very much for reading. **_

**Chapter 7**

To her surprise, Sara actually managed a good four hours of sleep before a nightmare woke her. She went for a shower and surprisingly refreshed afterwards. She had a quick meal of fruit and muesli before she headed back to the lab. She gave the letters from her locker a considering look before putting them out of her mind for the time being. It was her usual routine.

First she collected all the outstanding lab results she had requested and worked them into the case file. Then she went back to the file from Wolmerans to continue looking for possible connections to her case. After a few hours Nick joined her and they were exchanging notes and updating their case file when Grissom found them.

Sara eyed him nervously, Ekclie's treat hanging like a cloud over her head. But Grissom just wanted to know where they were with the case. Apparently he hadn't spoken to Ekclie yet this shift. Sara knew it would be infinitely better if she spoke to Grissom before Ecklie did, but she could not bring herself to do so. Just thinking about the possibility of seeing disappointment in his icy blue eyes made her feel faint. She wasn't exactly sure when it happened, but somewhere along the line Grissom's approval became intimately intertwined with her own self worth and she felt powerless to change it.

"Excuse me. I'm looking for CSI Sara Sidle?"

A handsome middle aged man was standing in the door. He wasn't tall but the way he carried himself, he appeared to be taller. He had a self-assuredness that radiated of him and was clearly used to people listening to him. He had short cropped black hair that was flecked with grey at the sides.

"I'm Sara Sidle" Sara answered, getting up, mentally assessing the man. The others also got up to face the stranger.

"I'm James Reed from Interpol" the man introduced himself, extending his hand to Sara.

_Please don't let him shout at me before Grissom,_ she shot a quick prayer. Sara took his hand, and then introduced her two colleagues. They exchanged pleasantries and Reed turned back to Sara.

"I understand you are leading the investigation into the death of one of our agents. Do you mind filling me in on the case?"

Sara felt her stomach turn into knots and she laid out the case to Reed. He made no comment and only asked the occasional question. He showed no reaction and Sara was becoming increasingly nervous. She was just finishing with the laptop incident when Ekclie entered, rather breathless. He interrupted Sara and thrust his hand at Reed.

"Conrad Ekclie, Lab Supervisor."

Reed shook his hand politely. "James Reed. We spoke on the phone. I must admit that CSI Sidle seems to be doing an exemplary job. I commend her on her diligence and competency."

Ekclie was staring at Reed with his mouth open but seemed to recover with lightning speed.

"We pride ourselves on the work we do," he replied smoothly.

Grissom was watching Ecklie, his eyebrows in danger of disappearing into his hairline, and Nick could barely contain the grin spreading over his face. Sara felt rather giddy with relief.

"We were worried that Agent Smith's computer might have fallen into the wrong hands, so we blocked access from it. I'm sorry if it caused undue problems. It came as quite a relief to find it in safe hands." Reed continued. Turning to Sara Reed added "I will see to it that you are granted access to the relevant information concerning your case."

He gave her his business card and turned back to the others.

"It was nice meeting you all."

And with that he strode away.

Ekclie stared at his retreating back, glanced at the CSIs and hurried after Reed. Nick grabbed Sara in a tight hug and she nearly collapsed in his arms.

Brass poked his head in unannounced.

"Word is some big shot from Interpol is snooping around here. What did I miss?"

* * *

Nick and Sara went with Brass to investigate the address that Smith frequented before his death. Sure enough, it led to a post-office. Using the key on a trial-and-error basis, they finally found the correct box. Nick dusted for prints, before opening it. There was a lot of junk mail, but also three letters, again addressed to Edward Casey. Sara carefully bagged them to be opened by the questionable documents department back at the lab.

There was still no sign of John Nkosazana.

They were just entering the lab, when Ekclie and the assistant DA met them coming the other way. Ekclie didn't bother with greetings.

"I have phoned the DA's office. He agrees with me that we have enough evidence to go ahead with the case. They are charging Sipho Nkosazana with the murder of Agent Smith and . There is no need for further investigations into this case." Ekclie watched Sara's face intently.

"What about John Nkosazana?" Sara asked incredulously

"Have you found him?" Ekclie directed this question at Brass

"We're still looking."

"What about the Rhino-poaching ring?" Sara asked, she could feel her face becoming red.

If Ekclie had known her better, he would have been alarmed as her eyes darkened to almost black.

Brass noticed.

"That is no concern of ours," Ecklie pointed out. "This is as far as this case goes, Sidle. Leave it to alone, that's an order."

Ekclie and the lawyer brushed past them to go out of the building, Sara opened her mouth to say something but Brass grabbed her arm.

"Leave it. It's not worth it."

Brass led a fuming Sara and trailing Nick back to the break-room where they met Greg.

He took one look at their faces and said: "So you've heard"

Sara threw herself into an empty chair.

"I'll see you guys," Brass said to them as he left, looking preoccupied.

"That guy Reed you spoke to earlier?" Greg began as he got and strode over to the coffee machine, eyeing Sara. "Apparently he is some top brass over at Interpol. Everyone in the lab knows about Ekclie's explosion yesterday, and now everyone knows what Reed said. They're laughing behind his back. I think that's why he went to the DA. He was made to look a proper idiot."

Greg always had a line tapped into the infamous lab-grapevine. He handed Sara a cup of coffee brewed from his private stash. It was a sign of how much sympathy Greg had with her situation. He guarded his stash closer than a mother-bear guarded her cub. Sipping slowly Sara reflected how much better this stuff was than the primordial sludge that usually passed for coffee in the break room.

"But I didn't do anything," Sara protested.

"Don't think he cares much about that." Nick added, finally voicing his opinion. "But to be honest, the poaching ring isn't really our responsibility. It's Interpol's."

Sara shot daggers out of her eyes. "Et tu Brute!"

"Did you know about this Griss?" Sara asked as he entered, hearing the last bit of their conversation. The amusement in his eyes at hearing her quote Shakespeare disappeared as he studied her face.

"I just found out. I'm sorry Sara, but there's not much more we can do."

He held her eyes for a moment, before glancing down at the slips in his hands. Sara groaned inwardly as she realized that Grissom was going to hand her a new case. She searched his face, but it was almost unreadable as she took the yellow slip of paper from him.

It was a car-jacking gone bad on the strip.

"Take Greg with you," Grissom said as he handed Nick and Warrick their own case. Catherine was due in court that day. Sara noticed that he didn't take a case himself

"I got sent a large sample from a case in Miami to provide an entomological evaluation." Grissom answered, reading the question in her eyes. He was clearly looking forward to it.

Returning to her work station, Sara realized she still had the letters they collected from the post box. She added that to the evidence log. No doubt the DA wasn't very interested in them, but they could still prove useful. If nothing else, Sara was determent to have a look at them herself.

* * *

The case Sara and Greg were given seemed quite straight forward. A couple had apparently been getting into their car when they were shot and the car stolen. Various people were on the street, but the eyewitness accounts varied considerably. The couple was identified as Mr. and Mrs. Williamson.

Sara and Greg photographed the scene and collected evidence, but Sara couldn't get her mind off the poaching case.

One of the eyewitnesses could provide a description and a partial plate number. So an APV was put out on the vehicle. Mr. Williamson was shot in the back twice at short range while Mrs. Williamson was shot once, also in the back. There was an oil spill to the side of the road that glistened with refraction iridescence in the lights of the nearest casino. She took photographs and a sample.

They were just arriving back at the lab when Detective Vega called. They found the car with a sixteen year old kid driving it. He claimed to have found it abandoned. The car was being towed to the CSI garage, and the kid brought in for questioning.

Greg was really coming to his own as a CSI, Sara thought proudly as she sent him to process the kid. She also reminded him to swab the kids clothes for GSR, and to check the shoe-soles for oil. Then, she headed for the change room, dropping the evidence they collected along the way. The poaching case was niggling in the back of her mind, but she refused to let it get in the way of her current case.

Upon reaching the garage she only had to wait a little while for the car to arrive. There was a bullet hole in the driver seat. At the bottom rim of the same side opened door was an oily footprint. Grinning to herself, Sara pictured the perp stepping in the oil stain on the tarmac and then stepping on the opened door as he got in the car. On a hunch she tested the top of the car roof for GSR. It was positive. Sara theorized that the perp shot Mr. Williamson first, then, standing on the instep of the opened car door to gain extra height, shot Mrs. Williamson in the back as she tried to run away.

She dusted for fingerprints on the steering wheel first, then on the gear shift. The gear shift only had smudges but the steering wheel had a few nice fingerprints with good ridge detail. Sara removed the driver seat and dug out the bullet. It was covered in blood.

All in all it was a pretty open and shut case. The sixteen year old had GSR and blood from Mr. Williams on his shirt and an oil stain on his shoe matching the oil on the tarmac as well as the car stain. Greg had no problem wrapping up the case and Sara let him run with it.

"Let's go get some breakfast" Greg said as he and Sara walked back to PD after securing a confession from the 16y old kid. Greg was bouncing on the balls of his feet, still riding the wave of exhilaration of closing a case. Sara didn't really feel it, but gave him a smile though she had to refuse his offer.

"I'm pretty tired, I think I'll go home."

"I could come with if you like." Greg teased.

"In your dreams."

"Constantly."

Sara had to laugh at his goofy lines, feeling some of her frustration about the poaching case melting away. Her usual high of closing a case were overshadowed by it. It rankled that she was expected to leave it there. Sure they had caught one of the killers, and it was a pretty air tight case, but that was only part of the story, the tip of the iceberg. Leaving it here felt like giving up and Sara was nowhere near ready to do that.

She took an extra long shower, making sure everyone from her shift was gone before getting out. But rather that go home, she went back to the computer lab to pull everything she could on Edward Casey, the pseudonym used by Agent Smith. She was trying to determine if the South Africans knew of him. There was no-one by that name in their system. Sara wondered if he could have used a different cover while working there.

Sara retrieved the letters addressed to Edward Casey from the evidence locker. One letter in particular piqued her interest. It was a hotel bill, and it seemed Casey went there three to four times a month. The hotel was one of the smaller ones off the stripand Sara made a note to go check it out. Hopefully it was a link to the poaching syndicate Agent Smith was trying to penetrate.

She continued working till she spotted Catherine rounding the corner. Sara quickly closed everything she was working on and met Catherine at the door.

"What are you still doing here?" Catherine asked with a smile.

"Just wrapping up a case. How did court go?"

The two women walked to the change room. Catherine whined about the slimy tactics of lawyers, but Sara only listened enough to make the right noises at the right time.

"Well , see you tomorrow," Catherine said as Sara collected her things and headed for the parking lot.

Neither of the woman noticed Grissom following just behind them.

* * *

Grissom was just rounding the reception desk, when the receptionist called him back.

"Shoot, I was supposed to give this to CSI Sidle, would you mind giving it to her please Dr. Grissom?"

Giving her a tired smile he took the piece of paper from her.

"Thank you sir." the receptionist sat down gratefully.

"Don't mention it," Grissom replied, but the smile disappeared from his lips as he read the message. It was from James Reed, asking Sara to call him to discuss possible future job possibilities.

It was a very pensive Grissom that drove himself home.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Chapter 8**_

Sara's dream was always variations on the same theme. She would hear her mother screaming and she would run towards the sound. She was always in their old house, but it looked nothing like it, in the strange way of dreams. She would run through door after door following the sound of her mother's screams. Some nights she never reached her mother. Those were the better ones. It left her feeling tired but not as drained. Not like the ones where she finds her mother. She would burst through the door and her mother would be kneeling next to the body of her father. Some nights he would be shot, others stabbed. But there was always a lot of blood. Sometimes other people were also in the room. People she remember from that time or her childhood. Her social-worker telling her she must go and pack. A faceless policeman telling her that there was nothing to be afraid of. Various foster parents, their faces blurry with in distinction, telling her to behave and be quiet. But her mother never spoke to her. No matter how Sara asked or begged she would cry into her hands, never even looking up. Sara had realized that she could not remember what her mother looked like. She was unsure how she felt about it and that in itself made her feel guilty.

That night's dream was different though. The dream started off in its normal pattern, she even reached the room with her mother in it. But when she opened the door, she found Grissom watching her mother cry. He then calmly started making notes on his clipboard. Walking to the wall he beckoned Sara over and started explaining to her how the blood spatter indicated a high velocity wound, probably from a gunshot. She started to tell him that it was her father's blood, but every time he looked at her, she would start crying, unable to speak. He put his hand on her shoulder and told her not to worry; it was only empathy she was feeling.

Sara woke up in tears, something that has not happened since high school.

Never before had it been so vivid, and never before had Grissom been in it. When she got out of bed and into a shower, she vaguely wondered if telling him about her past had prompted it. She let the warm water run over her back and sooth her sore muscles and aching mind. She was still very tired but sleep held no appeal now.

She dressed in her running track-suit and sneakers and walked next door to pick up Chris. Chris was one of the real light points in her life. She never had pets growing up, and although she had always liked animals, she had never seen herself as a pet owner.

Then, one afternoon as she was waiting at the lift to go running, an old woman in a wheelchair rolled over, a border collie on a leash tied to her chair. The dog started wiggling its whole body and dancing around her as if she was a long lost friend. Kneeling down the dog had licked Sara all over her face. That's how she had met Chris. It turned out that the old woman, Mrs. Milligan, had been her neighbor for the last two years. She had had Chris for a few months, having taking him in after he was confiscated from his previous owners. The animal had been badly abused, and was extremely fearful of strangers, and took a long time to trust people. Mrs. Milligan was astounded by his reaction to Sara, as was Sara herself once she heard the dog's story. Mrs. Milligan was taking Chris for a call of nature, and on a whim Sara offered to take him along for her run. She has since then never taken a run without him. Chris was the first creature to show Sara unconditional love. During her life she frequently had her heart and her love thrown back into her face.

Mrs. Milligan was a writer who worked from home. She gave Sara a key to her flat, and told her to come fetch the dog any time, day or night. Slipping the key into the lock and opening the door, Sara found that he was already waiting for her. Slipping the leash onto his collar, she locked the door again. Chris always remained calm till they were out of the flat before starting to dance his excitement, making small squeaky noises, and wiggling his whole body from nose to tail in rapid figure-s movements. Sara never waited for the lift with Chris, as he made to much noise and always jogged down the stairs with the dog leading the way. Outside they always stopped at Chris's favorite tree at the entrance of the apartment building to mark his spot before setting of at a gentle. From the beginning Sara was amazed at how well behaved he was. He never pulled at his leash, as most dogs was prone to do, but jogged beside her, glancing up at her every few steps, as if constantly seeking her approval. His only problem was that he tensed whenever he saw another jogger. The hair on his back would rise and he'd move so close to her that he was at risk of becoming entangled in her legs. But he never launched at the person or even barked. Sara marked it down as a response to his painful past, and was rather proud that this seemed to be the only emotional scars he bore. He would start whining when he wanted to pee and Sara was more than happy to go to the nearest tree.

Today even the run barely broke through the dream-induced fog in her mind. Chris seemed to sense her anguish and kept very close to her, tripping over his own feet as he kept looking at her. She went further than normal but Chris seemed to want to keep going. By the end of their run, Sara could feel the endorphins released by her body starting to untangle some of the knots in her mind.

She gave a grateful Chris a long drink of cold water at her apartment before taking him back to Mrs. Milligan's. She opened the door just enough to let Chris in and locked it behind him. She did not have to stomach to face Mrs. Milligan today. The old woman always seemed to hear more than what Sara was telling her though luckily, she never pried for which Sara was grateful.

Back at her apartment she took another long shower before heading to the lab. It was still several hours before the start of her shift, but Sara wanted to do some work on the rhino-case. It had been bugging her. If she was brutally honest, the fact that Ecklie had told her to leave it alone, only made it more appealing. Yet Sara Sidle had always been a champion of the underdog.

Arriving at the lab, she quietly made her way to the evidence room, grateful that she met no one on the way. Booking out her 2 boxes of evidence, she noticed the officer in charge had them already waiting for her when she arrived. Giving him a grateful smile she signed and made her way to an empty lay-out room. She wanted to follow-up on some ideas she had. She was cross-referencing the telephone records of the dead agent, the murdered woman and the gang-banger whose gun had been used. Ecklie was unwilling to spend more lab resources on a case that he saw as unimportant, so Sara didn't log these hours. Rubbing her eyes, she stopped after a couple of hours, checking the time she packed up. She was reluctant to let the others know how much time she was still spending on this case. Coming back into the lab after dropping the boxes back in the evidence lock-up, she nearly walked into Greg as he was sauntering into .the building.

"Hi Greg"

He gave her a knowing smile as he looked over her shoulder in the direction she had just come from, the corridor leading to the evidence locker. She had the decency to flush slightly.

"Learn anything new?"

"No" she answered dejectedly

"Don't worry, next case I'll let you work with me!" He said, draping his arm companionably over her shoulder.

"Oh, really…"

She broke off mid-sentence as Grissom came round the corner. His blue eyes shot daggers at Greg, who quickly removed his arm as if caught doing something illegal. For all the world, he looking like a teenager caught smoking.

"There's a 4-19 out in the suburbs, Sara you're with me. Nick is waiting for us at the car. Greg you're with Catherine," he said as he briskly walked past the two.

"I'll just get my kit," Sara answered to his retreating back.

"Someone has his tail feathers all in a bunch," Greg observed, but softly so that only Sara could hear.

"Better get my kit," Sara sighed again as she and Greg walked deeper into the lab.

_This_ _was going to be another long shift,_ she thought.


	9. Chapter 9

_**A/N: **__**A lot of the information in this chapter is inferred from reading countless Kathy Reichs and Clea Koff books. Although my writing could never live up to those standards this chapter is appreciation of those two authors. I would dearly love to thank you all for reading and especially those who take the time to review. You guys rock!**_

**Chapter 9**

Grissom drove and Nick rode shot-gun. For once Sara was glad as she didn't _really_ want to talk to Grissom right now. She kept remembering him as he was in her dream and it made her extremely uncomfortable.

They met Brass at the front end of a neat suburbia home. Brass glanced at Sara and she looked away, purposefully studying the front lawn. She always felt that Brass could see or guess more than any of her other colleagues.

"You guys are gonna love this. A team was digging a pool and the crew found more than just rocks and earthworms. Come take a look."

Brass filled them in as he led them to the back yard. A large pile of excavated dirt was piled on one side of a large hole. The digging crew was standing around it, peering in. The project manager was shifting from foot to foot, clearly annoyed by the delay.

When the CSI looked down the hole they saw a skeleton, or rather – part of a skeleton. The pool digging crew had cut through what appeared to be a femur of one of the legs. The fractured end of the femur lay forlornly at the bottom of the hole, along with the tibia and fibia still attached at the knee joint. The foot had fallen of and lay next to the piece of bone. The shoe was partly disintegrated, but retained enough structural integrity to keep the foot bones together. The broken end of the femur was sticking out of the ground about 5 inches from the bottom of the hole. The rest of the body was presumably still attached to it.

"That appears to be human," Grissom said dryly.

"That's why we called you guys," the supervisor replied irritably. "Look it took you long enough to get here, can we just please dig the guy out so we can continue with the pool? We get paid for the job, not per day if you get my meaning."

Grissom purposefully ignored him.

"Right now all I see are parts of a body, we don't even know if foul play was involved or a crime was committed. But the fact that the body wasn't buried in a cemetery speaks for itself." Grissom added.

Sara didn't much care for the attitude of the project manager.

"Surely the finding of human remains is more important than finishing a pool on time." She added scathingly.

The project manager huffed and, throwing his hands, in the air stalked off. Sara scowled at his retreating back then, looking back at Grissom she was surprised to find him smiling at her. His eyes were sparkling which made her blush and she turned away quickly, faking interest in the rest of the area.

Grissom arranged to have the ground scanned with Doppler ultra-sound radar, to identify possible areas of disturbance. It wasn't exact but it least it gave them an indication where to dig.

Because they could see on what level the body was, Grissom had the pool digging crew remove a lot of top soil with the back hew. Then the CSI's moved in themselves with trowels and small shovels. They soon revealed a complete skeleton. Most of the clothes had long since disintegrated. A few scraps still clung to the bones here and there. Once the skeleton was completely exposed they had to wait for the coroner to arrive.

The ground survey revealed disturbances like that in at least three more areas of the backyard. Those were marked off with crime scene tape. While they waited for the coroner, Sara and Nick moved to the next site and started digging. They were going to do all of the ground removal themselves this time so as to not miss or destroy any possible evidence. They numbered the sites, with the first body recovered marked as number one.

Every yard of dirt removed was to be put onto a different plastic layer and sifted for evidence. Sara and Nick were shoveling the dirt onto the plastic bags of the area designated as number 2. Grissom would collect the dirt removed and run it through the siff. It was really hard work but Sara was relishing it. She and Nick were wearing blue overall with white gumboots. They were already standing more than waist high in the grave and it was becoming harder to lift the shovelful of dirt up onto the waiting plastic. They also needed to start going slower as the body was not much deeper than they were now. The sun was just rising over the horizon, and already the thermostat was climbing. Nick unzipped the top part of his overall and let it hang loose around his waist. Sara considered for a moment before following his lead. The tight white T-shirt she wore underneath was much cooler. The sun crested over the trees and picked out the dust particles in the air, making them shimmer. Flies were starting to become attracted to the site, again indicating the nearness of a decomposing body. Grissom was taking careful note of the species that were arriving whilst sorting through the dirt Sara and Nick removed from the grave. The smell of decomposition also became stronger and stronger the deeper they dug down.

Sara deposited another shovelful of dirt and when she looked down again, three tiny bones poked through the earth. She smiled with satisfaction. This is why she did this job. Knowing that they had found a person that a perpetrator took great pains to hide, who might otherwise never have been found. There was a reward in that no easily explained.

It was human phalanges. The tiny little bones forming the toes. Now it was down to trowels and paint brushes. There was always a chance that they misjudged the positioning of the body. If that was the case, they would have to widen the hole, starting at the surface. The Doppler-ultrasound gave a rough idea of disturbance in the ground, and that's what they used to guide their dig. After some searching and digging though, it seemed that their estimation of the location of the skeleton was correct.

Sara and Nick carefully scraped away the soil from the body. Finally revealing an almost fully decomposed body. The smell from the rotting flesh left in the torso and skull cavity was all encompassing. It always seemed strange that, although some parts of the body could be nothing but bone, flesh still clung to other parts. Every dead body was different.

The various insects also lost no time in getting to work on what had so long been denied to them. The flies landed on the body and on the investigators pretty indiscriminately and Sara was forever shooing them from her hands and face. There was hardly enough room in the grave for both the CSI's to stand, without standing on the body so Sara got out to give Nick more room to take photographs of the body. She plodded down on the grass and watched him as he included the scale strips, case ID numbers and an arrow pointing north in all his photographs.

Coming up behind her, Grissom handed Sara a cool bottle of still spring water which she accepted with a grateful smile. He sat down next to her and they both watched Nick work. There were still two more areas of disturbance where they assumed bodies were buried that they needed to exhume. Yet Sara was eager to get them out. She studied Grissom out of the corner of her eye as he drank deeply from his water bottle. She reflected how it seemed they got on best when there was a serious case to work on.

It was sad really.

"Find anything in the dirt so far?" She asked Grissom .

She could feel the sweat drying on her skin and her muscles starting to feel a bit stiff as she cooled down.

"No nothing so far. But I bagged a sample of each level anyway. I also collected a few nice entomological samples."

"Will they help with a time line?" Sara asked smiling.

"Only to a limited extent, as the body was buried fairly deeply. Pupae collected from the body itself will tell us more. Here you go Nick."

Grissom tossed him a bottle as he also climbed out of the grave. They waited for David to remove the body. They just sat there watching and Sara realized that it had been a long time since there was such a companionable silence between her and Grissom. She was sweaty and stinky, the palm of her right hand was becoming raw, she knew she had a bruise on her inside of her left thigh from dropping the pick, her back ached and they were no-where near finished, but right at that moment, she could think of nowhere else she would rather be.

Warrick, Greg and Catherine arrived, also dressed in blue overalls and white gum boots. Their shift was finished, so they came to help with the excavations. Sara was once again struck by how close to a family the team was.

Getting up to greet the others, they stood looking down on the body in the grave. The body was lying on its side with his legs flexed almost 900, his one arm was pinned underneath his chest. There was a big gaping hole in the skull, presumably from a gunshot wound.

"I think he was kneeling on his knees when he was shot," Sara remarked as she looked at the body.

"Yeah, why's that?" Nick asked wiping sweat from his forehead.

"Well if he was standing and fell into the grave, or was pushed in, wouldn't the limbs be more extended?"

The CSIs stood silently as they processed this.

"I think you might be right Sara. We would need to confirm with an experiment I think," Grissom remarked, cocking his head to the side.

Sara felt herself glow from the praise.

Grissom set the new arrivals to excavate the body at site 3.

Getting back to work, Sara and Nick searched the area under the body on their hands and knees for any evidence. Sure enough she found some carpal bones, the small wrist bones, as well as skull fragments lying loose. She bagged those individually. It was approaching mid-morning by the time they finished the grave. Grissom would not allow the cadets or the cops to exhume the supposed graves for fear of losing evidence. Sara and Nick tackled the next, and hopefully last, grave, designated site 4. Sara was surprised to find this body much shallower that the other two she had helped excavate. The body that Catherine and Warrick exhumed was also buried very shallowly, and judging by the decomposition of the body, also the freshest. Sara puzzled as to the reason but put the question aside for later. Both the other bodies were also found with their legs flexed. Both also showed major trauma to the skulls. The body looked strange to Sara. Usually she could at least get an idea of how long a body had been dead, days, months or years. This body looked almost grey, almost translucent. The entire left shoulder area had a greenish color that Sara hadn't seen before. The body was in a much less advanced state of decomposition than the other two unearthed so far.

The last two bodies was finally removed from their graves and also sent to the morgue.

Sitting on a piece of grass that had somehow escaped the rampages of the backyard, Grissom held a quick meeting. It was late afternoon. Sara was hungry, filthy and thirsty. She had drunk a lot of water during the day, mainly at Grissom's urging, and he had also pressed a Cheese-and-Tomato sandwich on her at around noon, but that was all.

"The bodies are on their way to the lab, but I told Doc Robbins to hold off on the autopsies of the two skeletonised bodies till tomorrow," Grissom said. Sara opened her mouth to protest but he cut across her quickly.

"These are old cases, they will keep till tomorrow. There are other fresher leads for us to follow. Also it will give the forensic anthropologist I called time to get here."

The rest of the team looked at each other. It made sense, but Grissom wasn't known to readily ask for outside help.

"Terry Miller?" Catherine asked, referring to the forensic anthropologist that the lab has used in the past.

"No, Dr. Temperance Brennan," Grissom answered. "She flies in from Quebec tonight."

He looked at their curious faces

"I met her at a conference once. These cases are right within her area of expertise. Ok, everyone go grab a shower. We'll meet back at the lab in one hour." Grissom told Nick and Sara, looking proudly at their sweaty, dirt stained faces. "Warrick, Greg, Catherine thanks for your help; I'll see you in a few hours at the start of next shift."

"Enjoy guys," Catherine said over her shoulder.

Even after a dig in the dirt, she still somehow managed to look groomed. Sara knew she definitely did not. Her hair had kept coming loose so she had had to retie it numerous times, finally ramming a cap on her head, even though it had been night. Sweat from her forehead kept running into her eyes, mixing with the dust as she smeared it away with her hand. She also smelt of death. She needed a shower, badly.

"It's ok, I'll shower at the lab," Sara said.

Besides her car was there anyway. Grissom glanced at her before nodding. Catherine, Greg and Warrick were already walking to their cars. They were on their way home.

Sara, Nick and Grissom would definitely pull a double.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Beta Note: My apologies to the readers, it's not the author's fault that this chapter was delayed but mine. **_

**Chapter 10**

"Any ideas why that one guy's shoulder is green?" Sara asked Grissom as she was driving them back to the lab. "Have you seen anything like it before?"

Grissom had some of his entomological samples on his lap and was sorting through them.

"My guess, there is probably a bullet in his shoulder and the green is due to oxidation of the bullet. The bodies we usually deal with aren't in the ground long enough for that to happen." He hardly looked up at her at all.

"Cool, that means the bullet is still in the body. Hopefully we have something for ballistics to work with," Sara replied, opening another bottle of water as they waited at a red light.

They were very sweaty so they rode with the windows rolled down.

Back at the lab she retrieved the bag of fresh lemons from her locker. She made a mental note to restock as she stepped into the shower. She always kept several pairs of clean underwear and at least two change of clothes in her locker. The underwear she had different categories of nice-ones-for-daily-wear, to-be-worn-for-stinky-jobs such as dumpster diving, and to-be-used-in-severe-decop-cases. You never go the smell completely out of your clothes, so she came up with this system. She put on a clean pair of lab-overalls to go down to the morgue and, she knew she would need another shower after working with the decomposing bodies, so she didn't bother changing into her spare clothes. She stuffed her dirty clothes into Ziploc bag to be washed at home and headed for the morgue. She wasn't surprised to find Grissom already there. He was also wearing an overall and she briefly wondered if he had a similar system, coloring at the though. Small droplets of water still clung to his curls from his own shower. It made her swallow hard as she thought of what _he_ might be wearing under his overall. She felt the heat rising to her face and started studying the body in front of her intently.

"I'll autopsy the two freshest bodies. The other two are almost completely skeletonised. Those must wait for the anthropologist." Doc Robbins was explaining the morgue technicians but he looked at her as she entered. "Hi Sara"

She smiled briefly. "Hi Doc."

Grissom glanced up as she came in and smiled before turning back to the body.

The smell permeating the morgue was horrendous, though fortunately not as bad as it was that time with a body enclosed in a bag. That was the one and only time Sara had ever puked from the stench.

"Where's Nick?" Sara asked Grissom.

"He went home to shower and change his clothes. He'll be back in about an hour."

Sara watched as Doc Robbins carefully and skillfully removed the clothes from the first victim to be autopsied. Victim number 3. The one with the green shoulder Sara and Nick had dug up. If the clothes weren't removed in the correct way, you risked disarticulating the fragile fingers. Or pulling the decomposing skin off the body, basically degloving it. Sara continued to watch as the Doc worked, whistling tunelessly through his teeth, and though that he made it look very easy. She and Grissom bagged the clothes he removed so that they could analyze it later. The fluoroscope had shown that there was indeed a bullet lodged in the victim's shoulder. Doc Robbins removed it, and Sara bagged it to be taken to ballistics. There was two more bullets lodged in the victim's skull, but that would have to be boiled down first before the bullets could be retrieved. The autopsy revealed that the victim was a young male, probably in his early twenties. So victim number 3 became John Doe 3. Cause of death was a gunshot wound to the back of the head. Doc Robbins estimated time of death roughly a year ago, Grissom collected more samples to add to his entomological timeline.

The second body to be autopsied, body number 4, seemed to be the freshest one. Doc Robbins estimated time of death only a few months ago. It was a body of a middle aged male with a single gunshot wound to the back of the neck. The fluoroscope again showed the presence of a bullet. Sara and Grissom again bagged the clothes. They worked in companionable silence and Sara wished it could've lasted a lifetime.

* * *

They were on their way back to the lab when they met Brass coming towards them.

"Jeez I thought you said you were going to take a shower," he complained.

"We did," Sara answered, turning red as soon as she heard her own words.

Brass lifted his eyebrows replying "Well go take another one".

Sara noticed that Grissom had gone quite red too.

"Do you have anything for us?" Grissom asked as they set off towards the lab.

"The house has been owned by the same guy for ten years, Justin Hall. He lives there with his wife and daughter, who just turned 16. Before that the property was in his mother's name, Patricia Hall, who also lives with the family. Apparently they have no idea how bodies came to buried in their back yard." He finishes, flipping his notebook closed and returning it to his breast pocket.

"Any idea as to the ID of the victims yet?"

"We'll have to wait for the dental exam and the anthropologist to confirm ID. But Doc Robbins is fairly sure all four victims are male. Most of them were shot in the back of the head, but there is a huge time gap between victims. Also the ages of the victims vary considerably."

"Do you think we have a serial on our hands Gil?" Brass asked

"We are too early in the investigation to tell," Grissom replied, shrugging his shoulders.

"By the way, the sheriff is looking for you, the press had somehow gotten wind of the discovery of the bodies."

Grissom groaned and Sara knew he hated this part of his job. The part where he had to placate the press and the politicians who often lost sight of the case itself in lewd with sensationalism. Giving him a sympathetic look, Sara headed for the ballistics department. At least they could get started on that bullet. She took another shower and this time changed into her normal underwear and spare clothes.

She was just about to start browsing through missing persons reports connected to the Hall family when Nick joined her. He brought some more sandwiches with him and they sat eating them while Sara filled him in on the case so far.

They started sifting through missing person records using the specs provided by Doc Robbins. They had many hits, but without more information, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Not having much luck Sara went in search of Grissom, seeing if he needed any help. She found him in one of the lay-out rooms, sorting his entomological samples.

"Need any help?" Sara asked as she eyed the organized chaos on the big table.

"I'm sorting the samples first by case, then by species, and then we'll be able to place them in order."

He replied, holding the box of examination gloves out to her. Donning some gloves she set to work. The samples from every site were piled separately. Grissom was done with the pile from victim number 1 and was just starting on the pile from victim number 2. Sara tackled the pile from John Doe 3. She had some knowledge of insects herself, having studied the entomological textbook Grissom gave her once many a sleepless night. Once in a while she would ask for Grissom's help in identifying a species, especially from immature stages, but all in all Sara made almost no mistakes. After the insects were sorted into species, Grissom started putting them in chronological order. It seemed that the first body found, victim number1, had been dead for approximately eighteen to twenty years. Victim number 2 was the oldest, having been in the ground for at least thirty years. John Doe number 3 had been dead for five to seven years and the final body, John Doe number 4 for about a year.

Sara assigned a big whiteboard to each of the bodies, using a fifth board for information that the four victims had in common. For each numbered body she filled in all the information they had gathered so far, from the preliminary autopsy results to Grissom's estimated timeline.

"Listen to this guys," Nick said as he came in then paused. "Wow you work fast," He remarked, looking up at Sara's boards.

"So we have a timeline for all of the victims? Why would there be such big gaps between victims, presuming it's the same killer?" He asked glancing at the estimated timelines.

"We don't know yet," Grissom answered. "What have you got Nicky?"

"Oh, yeah, me and Sara were combing through missing persons reports right but without much luck. Then I searched for police reports about that house or the Hall family. Get this, a young girl named Jessica Hall died at that house 28 years ago. According to the police report it was ruled a suicide by hanging. She was aged 15."

They were silent for a moment, pondering this over.

"What the hell went on in that house?" Sara asked incredulously.


	11. Chapter 11

_**AN: The Temperance Brennan that I'm borrowing here (she was in town, how could I not...) is not from the series Bones, but rather from the original books. Thanks to all who are reading! **_

**Chapter 11**

Grissom went to give the rest of the Night Shift CSI's their assignments, as they were just beginning. Walking over to Ballistics, Sara went to check on Bobby to see if he had any results for her yet.

"You have perfect timing Sara," he said, smiling as she stepped into the room. "I was just about to page you."

"You got something for me then?"

"Sure do. The bullet ya-all recovered from the body, is from a Smith and Wesson .357 revolver."

"One of the most common guns, right. Any match in avis?"

"No ma'am."

"Damm, thanks Bobby. There will be more bullets along to compare shortly." Sara told him as she left.

"I'll be here," he called after her.

Sara was beginning to feel fatigue seeping through her muscles, but this wasn't the first triple she pulled. Flipping her phone open she called Brass to see if someone in the Hall family had a gun registered to them, specifically a Smith and Wesson .357 revolver.

"I think we need to speak to Mrs. Hall senior," Sara continued. "She is the only one who lived long enough and is old enough to know anything about most of the bodies."

"Nick told me about the teenager who hung herself," Brass replied. "She was Justin's sister, Patricia Hall's daughter. I'm heading over there now to ask her a few questions, want to tag along?"

" I'll grab Grissom and meet you at the car" Sara answered eagerly as she hung-up.

Nick met her going the other way.

"Oh good. I was looking for you, the anthropologist arrived from Canada. Apparently she got an earlier flight. Grissom told us to meet him in the morgue."

"I was going to go with Brass to interview Grandma Hall." Sara stopped walking, and hesitated.

"You wanna see the anthropologist doing her thing, don't you?" Nick asked with a grin "It's ok, I'll go with Brass. You and Gruesome Grissom go play with the bodies."

She gave him a huge grin and punched him on the arm.

"Thanks Nicky," she said as she set of to go change into overalls, and into the to-be-used-in-severe-decop-cases underwear. Again.

Reaching the morgue, she found David, Doc Robbins and Grissom standing around one of the autopsy tables. The skeleton from victim number 1 was laid out on the table. At the head was a woman in a white coat, bending over the skull. She looked up as Sara entered.

"Sara, this is Dr. Temperance Brennan." Grissom introduced her.

"Sara Sidle," Sara held out her hand. Dr. Brennan reached for her hand but stopped. She already wore gloves and had started handling the body.

"Pleased to meet you, but I don't think you'd want to shake my hand right at this moment." She held her hands palms up in explanation and Sara agreed completely.

"Don't worry its fine," Sara smiled gratefully.

"Do all visiting anthropologist gets such an audience?" Dr. Brennan asked with a nervous smile looking around her.

"Only those as well published as you," Doc Robbins answered smoothly. "We don't often get anthropologists in the lab".

"Dr. Brennan just confirmed that our victim is male. Unfortunately the mandible was shattered by the bullet, so we can't use dental comparisons for ID. Dr. Brennan will have to reconstruct his skull and then do a facial reconstruction for us." Grissom filled Sara in as she came to stand next to him.

"Nick went with Brass to interview Grandma Hal,l" she said in reply to his unanswered question.

He nodded and looked back at the body.

"Do you have any estimation as to race yet, Doctor?" Sara asked.

"Well it's an area of my field that isn't very precise, and very controversial. But I would say this was a Caucasian." Dr. Brennan started explaining, unconsciously sliding smoothly into the lecturing mode she would use for anthropology students.

"Firstly we have very smooth cranial suture patterns, indicating that the person is probably not of Native American origin. Also there is no Post-Bregmotic depression on the top of the skull. Which means it's probably not someone of African descent. Then we have a large nasal spine," Dr Brennan said as she indicated the area of the bridge of the nose. "As well as a narrow nasal apenture. We have a retreating zygomatic arch, or cheek bone and a clear Matopic trace on the forehead. All this tells me that it is more likely that the person was Caucasian that not. But as I said, it's not exact."

Dr. Brennan carefully disarticulated the head, to pass it to David to be boiled down as it still contained some brain matter. Sara was more than impressed, and vigorously made mental notes of everything the woman was saying.

"Next we move to try and determine the age of the individual." Brennan continued, tapping the relevant parts of the beones as she explained. "In this case, all the epiphysial plates of the long bones are closed, indicating that the person was older that twenty six."

"Can't you use the age of cranial suture closure as well?" Sara asked.

"Yes but recent research has shown it to be unreliable," Brennan replied "It's best to use as many points on the body as possible to arrive at an estimate."

Brennan started measuring area of the pelvis.

"The pubic symphyseal face undergoes regular changes after the age of 18. That's the area where the two pubic bones are joined through cartilage in the front of the pelvic girdle. This was then divided and standardized into six phases to determine the age of the individual. It is fairly accurate and, by combining it with other measurements, you can get a fair estimation of the individual's age. I would say this person is in phase 4, making him somewhere between thirty five and forty five years of age when he died."

Standing back she considered the ribcage.

"The condition of the fourth and fifth rib ends are also places to examine if you're trying to determine the age of the individual. In this case, I would again say this person was in his late thirties, early forties."

They moved on to the last victim to be autopsied, number two. Dr. Brennan determined that it was also a Caucasian man, in his late forties to early fifties. He had severe blunt force trauma to the skull and Dr. Brennan was going to have to carefully reassemble the skull. It was like building a puzzle. It became very clear that the skull had suffered multiple blunt-force traumas. As the reconstruction progressed, it showed that there were four distinct areas of impact.

"Any idea as to the weapon that might have been used?" Grissom asked as they all stood around the finished skull.

"The trauma is too extensive, I'm sorry." Brennan said looking at the skull almost pensively "But I can tell you that this took some force. The first blow would most likely have been fatal, making the other three superfluous. Also we don't know what other trauma there might have been since all the soft tissue is gone. Needless to say this was an extremely violent death."

"This is the oldest body and the only one to show blunt force trauma. All the others were shot. I wonder what that means." Sara remarked.

"Well this was very messy, that's for sure. Maybe the killer decided to switch to using a gun because it's cleaner and less hard work." Grissom theorized.

"This was hard work, I can tell you that," Brennan asserted.

"When we found the other three bodies, their legs were flexed or almost tucked in under the body. This body was found in a more extended position. Do you have any reason as to why this might be Dr. Brennan?" Sara asked. It has been bugging her the whole time.

"Please, call me Tempe, and yes. It probably means that the victims were kneeling in the graves when they were shot and killed. Something similar was found in the mass graves of Kosovo and Croatia. In Rwanda for instance, where the victims were killed, and then buried on a later stage, we find that the limbs are usually extended, as in John Doe number two."

"That implies that the grave was dug before the person was killed. That's premeditation." Grissom added.

"A dead body is heavy and cumbersome to move. Maybe the killer shot them in the grave dug before hand to make things easier." Sara said.

"Or made them dig the grave themselves," Grissom added in a dark tone.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Dr. Brenan helped to produce a proper odontological report for the use in the dental identification process. One of the victims, John Doe 4 was identified as Markus Quinn, a 39 year old second hand car-dealer who had been reported missing by his live-in girlfriend 9 months ago.

John Doe 3 had been identified as Edward (Eddy) Richards. A twenty one year old pizza delivery boy, who had been living with his parents, when he was reported missing five years ago.

Sara and Grissom were standing in the lay out room updating the whiteboards with all the new information. Sara also added the available information about Jessica Hall on the fifth board.

"I can't imagine any connection between Richards and Quinn. They probably moved in different social circles, they had different friends. Quinn never even ordered a pizza from the place that Richards worked. I checked." Sara said as she sat down, watching the board despondently.

"Well, then let's focus on what they do have in common," Grissom said, also sitting down. "Where they were buried is the most important factor connecting these victims."

"Ok, all four were buried in the Hall family backyard, so chances are we are looking for a Hall family member," Sara started the ticking the points off her fingers as she talked. "Three of the four were shot with a Smith and Wesson .39 revolver."

Grissom gave her a questioning glance. "Bobby confirmed it from the bullets recovered by Doc. Robbins," she explained quickly, realizing that she hadn't yet told him that.

He nodded and she quickly continued. "And they're all male."

She stopped and Grissom glanced at her again.

"I read a Time article recently," Sara said thoughtfully. "The ATF did a study of 88 570 guns found at crime scenes in 46 US cities in 2000. Using that they classified weapons as offensive, defensive or sporting, based on their time-to-crime interval. For instance Bryco Arms 9mm semiautomatics recovered from kids younger than eighteen had a median time-to-crime of one and a half years, and those recovered from suspects aged eighteen to twenty four had a median time-to-crime of one point one years. The Hi Point 9mm is another downscale semiautomatic frequently seized from suspects in the eighteen-to-twenty four age range; it has a time-to-crime span of just one year. But revolvers had a median time-to-crime of twelve point three years, according to the 2000 figures." She quoted the article, almost word for word.

Grissom was sitting looking at her with a smile on his face. Sara thought she caught something else in his eyes before he looked back at the whiteboards.

"So probably these crimes were done with a weapon already owned, rather than with one specifically procured for the purpose," he asked, not looking at her.

"I guess so."

Lifting an eyebrow he looked at her.

"A good scientist shouldn't guess."

"Yes Holmes. But what would you have me do?"

He looked at her with a crooked smile, and Sara answered it with a grin of her own when Nick rushed into the layout room. He was so excited that he completely missed the atmosphere in the room or the fact that both Grissom and Sara had gone slightly red.

"Dr. Brennan just finished the facial reconstruction of John Doe2. You aren't going to guess who it is!"

"A good scientist doesn't guess, Nick" Sara informed him dryly.

Momentary taken aback Nick looked at his two co-workers, who were clearly enjoying a private joke.

"Right….. Ok. John Doe2, is Guy Hall. James Hall's father and Patricia Hall's husband. She told police he had run off with a cocktail waitress thirty years ago."

"I think we should have another talk with Patricia, don't you think? Something very strange had been going on it that house," Sara stated.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," was Grissom's answer.

"Shakespeare?" asked Nick.

Grissom's love for quoting the English author was legendary.

"Hamlet. After his father's murder," Sara answered for him.

* * *

Grissom and Sara joined Brass the interview room, facing an elderly Patricia Hall. Just before they entered Brass informed them that they had recovered a Smith and Wesson .39 revolver at the Hall residence that was registered to the late Guy Hall. The weapon was sent to Bobby for comparison.

Patricia wore just enough make-up to look professional and well taken care of, but not so much that one couldn't get an idea of her age. She wore her grey, almost white hair short, and was dressed in an elegant blue dress. She carried herself upright and her eyes were penetrating but not unkind. Like they had seen many things in this world and there wasn't much left that could surprise her.

"One of the bodies found in your backyard, is that of your husband, Mrs. Hall," Brass said as he placed the reconstructed image of Guy Hall's face in front of her.

Mrs. Hall glanced at the pictures, but showed no surprise.

"We have also recovered the murder weapon from you house. Ballistics matched it to the bullets found in the victims," Brass continued, taking a little liberty. Removing the photos of the revolver, and some of the ballistics results out of the case file, he added it to the pictures already on the table.

"We know James was only eight years old at the time of his father's death, probably too young to know what was going on. Is there anything you would like to tell us, Mrs. Hall?"

"My client reserves the right to remain silent," the lawyer piped in.

"It's ok young man. I knew as soon as they found that body that it would lead to this. In fact I thought this day would have come sooner," Mrs. Hall patted the lawyer's arm, like a grandmother soothing an agitated grandson.

"My greatest regret in life, is that I didn't kill the bastard sooner. All the signs were there, but I was blind." She started explaining. Her voice was calm and resigned. She was in complete control of her emotions.

"The night it happened, I couldn't sleep, so I got up for a glass of milk. Guy often stayed up late to watch football game re-runs. He wasn't in the TV room, and I heard noises coming from Jessica's room. Never in all my life could I have imagined what I saw when I opened the door."

She fell silent for a moment before continuing.

"I don't remember all the details after so many years, I think my mind has blocked some of it out. But I do remember that there was a lot of blood. I continued hitting anyway. My mind kept telling me that he was already dead, but my heart wanted to destroy him for the harm he had done to my daughter."

She kept looking at Sara as she talked, maybe finding it easier than to look at Brass or Grissom.

"She never really recovered. Two years later she took her own life. I had failed her. In my fundamental job as her mother, I had failed her."

Patricia Hall closed her eyes for a moment before continuing.

"It took me the rest of the night to dig that bloody hole. And still I couldn't get it deep enough. I wanted to erase him from the face of the earth."

"Why didn't you phone the police?" Brass asked "You acted in defense of another, your daughter even."

Sara already knew the answer.

"I couldn't put Jessica through such an ordeal. Not even James knew what had happened. She was hanging by a thread as it was. I swore that no one would hurt my family again."

"And the others?" Grissom gently queried.

Patricia sat back in her chair, taking a deep breath. She looked older than she had at the start of the interview. Sara didn't know how she knew, but she was sure that this was the first time Patricia had ever told this story.

"I told James not to marry that girl, that she wasn't good wife material. They were married for 3 years when she started the affair. She thought that she was being very clever about it, but I knew. One day I followed her. His name was John Archer. I confronted him and told him to break it off - or I will. He refused. So one day when James and Gladys went away for the weekend, I invited John over, pretending to be Gladys. This time I had him dig his own damn grave, he had already metaphorically done so in any case. "

Sara noticed that when Patricia had spoken of her husband's death, there was pain in her voice. Now her voice was devoid of emotion.

"Then I told Gladys that John had come by to say goodbye. I told her that I would tell James everything I knew if she did not behave like an exemplary wife. For a while she did."

"And Edward Richards?" Brass asked.

"I did the world a favor with that one." She answered, her voice dripping with disgust.

"He delivered pizzas to our house a few times but was much too taken with Julie, my granddaughter, for my liking. She was 10 years old at the time. So I had James switch to another pizza delivery joint. But the little weasel still came by our house. Hanging out in the street talking to the kids. He started bringing Julie gifts, an expensive camera, a new cell phone, even a few pieces of cheap jewelry. I knew the signs this time. I saw what was happening. I warned Julie to stay away from him, but she was too young and too innocent to listen." Her eyes were blazing with anger as she talked. "I had the little shit dig his own grave as well. It's so much easier that way. Everything went well for a while again. Till Gladys met Markus Quinn. It was John Archer all over again, though this time, I didn't let it go as far as it did with John."

Patricia put her hands flat on the table.

"What I did was wrong. But given the choice I would do so again. I have prayed to God for forgiveness all these years, but if He can't understand why I did it, then He does not deserve our devotion. I protected my family to the best of my abilities, and I pray that I had done enough."

The room was silent for a moment. Confessions normally didn't happen this easily. And, to Sara, it felt… Wrong.

"One question," she said suddenly, breaking the silence. "Why did you dig the pool? Why did you renovate your garden if you _knew_ that there were bodies buried there?"

Patricia looked sad as she moved her hands across the table and to her lap. She looked at the one way mirror, apparently studying her own features. "My son ordered it," she said quietly. "He didn't know. In a way, I wish that he wouldn't. He never discussed it with me. The ground was broken before I could object. He thought it would be a surprise."

She smiled bitterly and turned back to them.

"I guess, in a way, it was."

* * *

"Pass the salt please," Brass asked Nick who was sitting next to him.

They were all sitting in the restaurant eating breakfast. Sara was exhausted and though she was hungry she kept pushing the pieces of her salad around the plate.

"I kinda feel sad for the old lady," Nick spoke around a mouth full of bacon. "I'm not saying I condone it, but I sort of understand why she did it."

Sara was drinking tea. She had learned that after pulling a triple, she often had trouble getting her mind to shut down. She struggled with insomnia on the best of times; she did not need the stimulatory effects of caffeine right now if she had any hope of getting some proper rest. Being physically tired helped; she resolved to take Chris for a run before turning in.

"Where would we be if everyone took the law into their own hands?" Grissom asked, nursing a cup of coffee.

"Maybe society would be a better place?" Sara said softly.

"I'm just glad I'm not part of the jury on this one. The evidence is pretty open and shut. The motives and intentions not so," Brass remarked.

After Brass and Nick had left, Sara and Grissom still lingered at the table. She could see him glancing at her still almost full plate, but was grateful that he didn't comment.

"I wish someone had protected me when I was young as Mrs. Hall did her family." Sara spoke into her tea, not looking up at Grissom. She wondered how different her life might have been. How much easier.

"Honey, she committed murder."

"So did my mother," she said quietly.

She felt forlorn and lost. The stark contrast between her own childhood, and the one Mrs. Hall fashioned for her granddaughter was almost painful. She realized that part of it was due to the exhaustion, after a certain amount of sleep-deprivation, one's emotion tended to become a bit frayed. She knew this, but the waves of melancholy crashed over her regardless. She was startled when Grissom took her hand in his. It was such an uncharacteristic gesture of friendship and empathy that Sara almost cried.

"Go home. Take a nice long bath. Everything will look better tomorrow."

He spoke softly and with such conviction, she almost believed him. His eyes were moist and filled with concern. Sara drank in every feature off his face. Hoping it will be enough to wade off a new wave of nightmares.

She stopped at the supermarket to buy new lemons before heading home. Taking out her phone, she tried Agent Scott's number, but it went straight to voicemail.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

The poaching case was at a stale-mate and Sara was frustrated beyond believe. She was in frequent communication with both Agent Scott and Wollie Wolmerans. Though Wolmerans had managed to arrest two suspected smugglers last week, her own work wasn't yielding anything new.

The case was taking up more and more of her time. She knew she was getting too involved, and a little obsessed by it, but felt almost helpless to prevent it. That the whole subject got so little attention rankled, it was as if nobody cared. Well everybody was appalled by it but nobody was prepared to actually do something about it. Sara knew she could do something and she felt a responsibility to do it. She knew it was irrational, that these crimes were being committed thousands of miles away, but she couldn't do anything to steer her mind away from it. Giving a voice to those who can't do so themselves were one of the main joys of her work.

While working on the poaching case, Sara was always careful to make a show of 'arriving' along with the rest of the team. After all, it was supposed to be a 'closed' case. She ran all the tests she wanted and did all the digging herself. The only person privy to her scheme was Greg, but she knew he had her back.

Sara's phone rang as she entered the locker room.

It was Mrs. Milligan. Sara answered with some trepidation as the woman rarely phoned her.

"Sara speaking. Hello Mrs. Milligan." There was only one thing she and the woman had in common and a cold hand touched her heart.

"Hello Sara."

"Is Chris ok?" The words escaped before she could stop them.

"Yes he's fine thank you," Mrs. Milligan said with clear delight. "But it's because of him that I'm phoning."

Sara frowned as she opened her locker and started putting her stuff away.

"I'm going to New York for my book tour. Is it at all possible for you to look after Chris while I'm gone?"

Sara's face broke into a huge grin. She had the whole Saturday and Sunday morning off and had been dreading it. She hated spending time away from the lab, it left her with too much time to think. However she knew if she asked Grissom to let her work, he would suspect she was once again not coping. She hated the fact that his impression and opinion of her mattered so much, but it did. More than anything she wanted him to think of her as strong and competent. Not the emotional wreck she was in reality. She had planned to take the poaching case home with her, at least make her forced absence from the lab productive. The thought that she and Chris might curl up on the bed with the case file together was very enticing. A deeper part of her brain prompted that it would have been even better if a certain human male also joined her in her bed. But she shut the thought down forcefully. Grissom had made himself perfectly clear: she wasn't worth the risk.

Privately, she agreed.

"It's settled. Chris will be spending the weekend with me."

Smiling as she rang off she slammed her locker shut, only to come face to face with a very curious Greg Sanders.

"So….. who's Chris?" Greg asked with wanton curiosity "Have you been holding out on me Sara Sidle?"

Sara blushed, but for the life of her couldn't understand why.

"It's nothing Greg," she muttered and was about to say more when Catherine walked in.

"What's nothing?" She asked with a grin, eyeing them suspiciously.

Sara looked pleadingly at Greg. He turned to Catherine,

"Sara loaned me one of her books on criminology, it's singed by the author. I'm trying to get his contact information out of her." Greg answered smoothly without even missing a beat.

Shooting Greg a grateful look, Sara turned to leave. Catherine watched them and noted the look of relief that crossed Sara's face along with the proud smugness on Greg's. _Fine_, she thought to herself. _I'll figure it out myself._

Sara led the trio to the break room to get their assignments. Catherine spotted someone in the hallway and sped towards that person.

"So," Greg resumed their earlier conversation when they were alone. "Does Chris know about us?"

"I tell him everything," Sara in a funny mood suddenly, was starting to enjoy this.

"So you _did_ tell him about us then."

"Yes, he doesn't seem to think you're a threat."

"Ouch" Greg made a dramatic grab for his heart at her words. "So in what line of work is this 'Chris' mmm?"

Sara considered this for a moment. "Well, mostly he's a body guard."

Greg gaped at her, not in a million years had he thought Sara might go for a Jock.

"Who's a bodyguard?" Grissom asked, Sara had not heard him enter and before she could answer Greg beat her to it.

"Sara's new boyfriend Chris," Greg answered folding his arms over his chest, every bit the disapproving brother.

Grissom dropped the paper he was holding and came up wearing a furious frown. Sara was somewhat taken aback. She imagined he won't be thrilled about her seeing someone, but he made it abundantly clear that a relationship between the two of them would never happen. But their relationship, or lack thereof, was anything but logical - Sara knew.

What pissed her off was the way he would dangle her on a string. He'd be as supportive as he was in the last case, and then pissed if she had a private life that didn't involve him. Not that she had one, and if anything, that made her even angrier.

Grissom thrust a piece of paper her way. She took it and glanced at it. A body had been found down a sewer, typical of Grissom to give her such a case. Her eyes blazed with anger, but not surprise.

"Come on Greg," she said, brushing past Grissom on her way out.

"No," Grissom said sharply, his tone only fueling her anger. "I need him to help Catherine on her case."

She turned around to face Grissom. It probably was only a half-truth, he wanted her to work alone. She held his eyes for a moment, more disappointed that they seemed unable to move past this pattern of behavior.

"Fine."

She stalked to the locker rooms to grab her change of gear and clothes.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Retrieving a body from a sewer was anything but easy. It was almost inevitable that you would cause some post mortem trauma yanking it out of the man-hole. But Sara had a lot of confidence in the skills of their pathologists to limit those to the minimum. Regardless, she inserted both hands of the victim into plastic bags and secured it with elastic bands in an attempt to retain any evidence on them. The fact that the body was dumped down a sewer would also mean that the decomposition rate would've been accelerated. A red baseball cap with a black logo of a rearing dragon on it lay on top of the body, probably tossed in afterwards. Sara photographed then bagged it and send it up to a waiting Detective Vega on the surface. There wasn't much room down the sewer, so when they were ready to hoist the body up, Sara crawled on her hands and knees into one of the tributaries to get out of the way. She noticed that it was blocked with a grill a short way in. This part of the sewer had small tributaries leading off in various directions. Every one of them were covered by a grill. Sara crawled into all off them to collect detritus. It was mostly dried plant material, and other rubbish washed down the sewer. It hadn't rained in a long time and the material on the grill was unlikely to be connected to the case at hand but Sara was nothing if not thorough. The thought of having to revisit the sewer later was more than enough incentive to be extra thorough the first time. When she finally climbed out, Detective Vega came over to her.

"That cap you found? It's part of the uniform of the Chinese Take Away over there," he indicated to a place across the street. "One off their waiters hasn't shown up for work tonight. A kid named Paul Grant. I phoned his folks, they haven't seen him since yesterday and he never came home from work so they just assumed he crashed at his girlfriend's place. Apparently he did that if his shift ran late. When he didn't come home from school, they phoned us. "

"Who found the body?"

"Street maintenance workers."

"They check-out?" Sara asked.

"So far, I told them to stick around anyway." He eyed her up and down "Doc Robbins just phoned to confirm ID. I was going to ask if you want to come with me when I speak to the parents…"

"But I need to shower first." Sara finished for him. "Don't worry, I am fully aware of the fact that I just spend the last 3 hours down a sewer. Besides I want to have a look around the outside of that Chinese restaurant first."

"Ok." Vega waved a couple of uniforms over. "See you later then," he said with a smile.

A teenaged boy wearing jeans, white T-Shirt and a white apron was busy emptying buckets into a dumpster at the back.

"Whoa, stop, stop!" Sara shouted, spotting him as she jogged over.

"It's just cooking trash, lady." The boy said as he picked up several empty buckets. He was wearing a red ball cap with the same logo found with the vic. It seemed Vega's assumption was right.

"We're short tonight so, if you don't mind…" He turned to leave.

"Yeah, you're short because Paul was killed last night."

"What? Really? That's totally messed up." The boy turned his ball cap to face backwards and Sara was reminded of Grissom. He also tended to do that sometimes.

"Timothy! I don't pay you to loaf!" An elderly Chinese man stuck his head out the open door. "And how many times have I told you to wear your cap on straight?"

"Sorry Mr. Chang," Timothy mumbled and slouched back inside.

"Excuse me, are you the owner?" Sara asked the man before he could disappear.

"Yes." He answered suspiciously, eyeing her dirty appearance and the two uniforms with her up and down. "What you want?"

"Paul Grant was killed last night. Is there anything you can tell us about that?"

"What these damn kids do when they leave here, is none of my concern." Mr. Chang snapped.

Sara felt her hackles rising.

"Mind if I poke around then?"

"Knock yourself out. Just don't break anything." He shouted over his retreating back.

"Thanks for your co-operation," Sara said under her breath as she started looking around.

There was a dark brown stain on the ground, right next to the dumpster, with what appeared to be blood spatter on the sides of the dumpster. Phenophyline confirmed that it was indeed blood, and a further test proved that the blood was human. Sara told the uniforms with her to cordon off the area as she took photos and collected samples. This was probably the primary crime scene. Next Sara glanced into the dumpster. It was almost full.

"Well lucky me, a sewer dunking and dumpster diving on the same shift."

The cop gave her a sympathetic look as he helped her into the dumpster. It was mostly filled with kitchen waste and empty food carton holders. She shoved those aside, but then she saw something much more interesting.

A golf club.

With blood on it.

* * *

The autopsy report was already waiting when she got back to the lab. Sara had spent so much time at the crime scene, she totally missed the post mortem. Grabbing a quick shower she got to work. According to Doc Robbins COD was blunt force trauma to the head. The golf-club was most likely the murder weapon. Sara was just waiting on DNA to confirm it.

She was dusting the handle of the golf club for finger prints, but could only find smudges and partials. Down on the shaft she found a partial palm-print.

"Hey, heard you had one smelly customer today," Greg popped his head in.

Sara gave him a smile. "And I heard you guys had a nice jewelry store break-inn" she said with a smile. He returned it but stood there, awkwardly shifting his weight.

"Look," he said finally. "I'm sorry about earlier"

Sara looked at him surprised and confused.

"Sorry for what, Greg?"

"For whatever I said to piss off Grissom so badly."

Sara sighed. "No Greg. It wasn't your fault. But for once, I'll be glad when my shift is over" she turned back to the golf handle.

"Some nice activities with Chris to look forward to?" He asked with a grin and she smiled, remembering her play.

"More a case of getting away from people. But yes, that too." She answered mysteriously.

"Ok. Shoot if you need anything."

Sara went off in search of Vega. She passed the break room where Grissom and Sofia Curtis were sharing some private joke. Her heart gave a pang but she firmly told herself that she wasn't interested in what they were talking about. Who Gill Grissom decided to spend his time with was no concern of hers.

She met Vega half-way to PD.

"I was just coming to get you. Kid just walked into PD saying he killed Paul Grant. But get this, he says he did it to protect this girl whom Grant was harassing."

"So he hit him with a golf club and shoved him down the sewer?"

"That's the story. He even brought the clothes he wore with him. Says he didn't think we'd find the body so fast. Come and have a look."

Peter Ross was sitting in one of the interrogation rooms. His father had shown up with a lawyer, and they haven't allowed Peter to say anything else. He was a scrawny teenager, wearing glasses and a face full of pimples.

Vega handed Sara the plastic bag that Peter Ross had brought with him.

"Says he was acting on behave of a Clarice Turner. They're bringing her in now," Vega told Sara.

"But what you need to know is: Is this victim blood on the clothes, right?"

"Yes please." Vega smiled at her.

Sara quickly walked back to the lab, she almost had more evidence than she had time to process it. She was so absorbed that she almost ran into Grissom.

"Sorry Griss." She wanted to keep on moving past him, but he wanted to talk to her.

"Doc Robbins tells me you missed your case's autopsy, Sara." His voice was neutral, but his eyes were sharper than she'd have liked.

Sara could feel her anger, which had been simmering just below the surface the entire shift, beginning to boil.

"I was in the field, processing the scene Grissom. Where did you think I was? You needed Greg and everybody else on other cases, remember? You send me out there alone!"

She turned around and walked away before she could say anything else and he could reply. She wanted to continue but she knew that Ekclie was circling for a reason to fire her. All the more so after the show down with the poaching case. Grissom watched her leave with his mouth open.

She put a rush on the DNA from the clothes Ross brought in and it was a match to Grant. She phoned Vega and he told her to meet him at PD as Clarice Turner had just been brought in. Watching from the observation window Sara had a good look at the girl. She wore a smug smile and way too much make-up for her age. Sara would be the first to admit that she was no expert, but the clothes the girl wore was clearly expensive. Her nails were neatly manicured and she was studying them intently, trying to look nonchalant. Clearly she was enjoying this.

Vega had already started the interview.

"I don't have control over what boys decide to do to each other on my account." She was saying her tone as smug as her smile.

"So you did not in fact ask Peter Ross to kill Paul Grant for you?"

"I would never do such a thing."

She was lying and Sara could feel it. All her instincts were screaming it at her. This girl was at the head of a puerile game. She walked to the other room where Peter Ross was still being held with his father and lawyer. She took a seat and faced Peter, talking to him directly.

"Peter, I need to know what really happened." The boy looked down at his hands. They were trembling slightly and he kept fiddling with his glasses. Like a nervous tick.

"Have you had the results of the tests back?" The lawyer snapped. Sara ignored him.

"Peter, Clarice Turner is here."

At the mention of the name his head snaps up, hope sparkling in his eyes.

"She'll tell you," Peter said.

"Peter, be quiet." His father snapped.

"That's just it, Peter. She said she never asked you to do anything to Paul."

The shock and disbelief was evident on his face. "But she begged me to help her, she cried on my shoulder. She said that I was the only one she could trust."

The anguish in the boy's voice was almost painful to hear. He had gone deadly pale.

"Do you have any proof? Anything at all?" Sara asked gently, her heart went out to him.

"Proof?" Peter asked in a small voice.

"Anything that can collaborate your story. Did she give you anything? Did she text you or give you a letter or anything?"

Peter blushed. "She kissed me, I….. it was my first kiss. She said Paul was a mean brute, that he abused her. She said that if I helped her, we could be girlfriend and boyfriend." Tears were spilling over Peter's eyes and he took his glasses of to wipe his face.

"I believe you Peter. I will do everything in my power to help you."

Vega was just finishing with Clarice as she stepped out of the room. He gave her a questioning glance when he realized where she had been, but didn't push.

"She manipulated him. He though he was acting in the defense of another." Sara said to Vega forcefully.

Holding up his hands "Yes I agree with you, but can we prove it?"

Clarice Turner and her father stepped out of the interrogation room

"You're letting her go?" Sara asked incredulously.

"I have nothing to hold her on." He held up his hands again in a sign of defeat and apology.

"Have a nice evening, officers." Clarice Turner piped as she walked past them.

Sara balled her fists and stalked back to the lab.

Result after result failed to yield anything new. The parents and lawyers of Clarice Turner refused to allow CSI to search their house and they didn't have enough for a warrant. Nothing at the Ross or Grant house yielded anything new either. There wasn't even any indication of abuse on Grant's part. There was nothing to prove that Clarice Turner had manipulated Peter Ross in committing murder for her.

Peter Ross was going stand trail alone.

It was the end of shift. Sara sat with her head in her hands in the lay out room she had been using. Every lead had been exhausted. Every avenue tried. She felt that both she herself and the system were letting Peter Ross down. That they had failed. She knew she had to, but she was reluctant to close the case. She knew it would haunt her for quite a while. This would now be the second case to stall in her hands.

"I'm sorry I pulled Greg from your case. I didn't realize it would generate so much work." Grissom had silently entered and was sitting next to her. She startled up at his voice, but didn't dare look at him.

"Please don't do this Griss. I can't do it anymore"

Sara didn't look up. Didn't lift her head out of her hands.

"Do what?"

She could hear the genuine confusion in his voice. It didn't help. He was completely unaware of the pain he was causing her.

"Be you puppet on a string." She looked up and he was taken aback by the pain and resignation in her eyes.

"You're not my puppet."

It was the wrong thing to say and he seemed to realize it the moment he said it, she could see his face change.

"The hell I'm not! You act all amicable the one case, only to treat me like hired help the next. I know you have feelings for me, and I know you have decided not to act on them." The words were out before she could stop them.

He paled at her words. They were true and they hit a nerve.

"I heard you confess it to a murderer," she clarified tiredly, realizing that there was no turning back now. "You didn't even have the decency to tell me to my face. You pull me in when it suits you, only to push me away the very next second. Then today when you found out that I may have a friend outside the department, you treat me like I'm a leper. I've had it Grissom."

She got up and shot past him as he opened his mouth to answer. She was standing in the doorway, her shoulders slumped and her eyes tired and sad. She waited for him to stop her, to say something, pleaded with him with her eyes. But he just continued to stare at her. She sighed and turned away.

"See you on Sunday."

"Sunday?" His voice was as surprised as his face.

"I have the night off tomorrow, remember? Probably not."

She grabbed her stuff from her locker and fled, not knowing that Grissom sat it the layout room long after she left.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

Arriving at her apartment, she dumped her bag and went to collect Chris. It amazed her how he was always glad to see her, no matter what mood she was in or what time of day it was. Opening her neighbour's apartment, Chris was once again happy to see her but he didn't do his usual jump an dance, which struck Sarah as odd. Mrs. Milligan had already gone, but she had left a note for Sara on the inside of her door saying that Chris had not wanted to eat the night before. That in itself wasn't that odd. He sometimes went a day without eating as he wasn't a very food driven dog. Sara had contacted a vet about it once before, who had said that as long as the dog seemed healthy and in good condition, there wasn't anything to worry about. Nevertheless Sara decided against taking him for a jog, as he seemed reluctant to jump. She took him outside for a call of nature, and although he stood straining for a while didn't do anything significant. Sara thought he might not need to go, so she took him back inside and took a shower. She wasn't hungry herself so got into bed and asked the dog to join her. He seemed reluctant to jump but finally made the effort.

"What's up boy?" She asked him stroking his fur as he lay cuddled against her.

He had the most beautiful long black and white coat. Sara never got tired looking at it, the silky soft hair, the sudden change from black to white as if someone drew a line. The black rings around his eyes and running down his snout making him look like a panda, and his long fluffy black tail with the white tip, like he dunked it in a bucket of white paint. Sara listened to his breathing and the slight forceful expression of air through his nostrils as he entered REM sleep. She soon joined him, happy for the company.

It was late afternoon when Sara woke as Chris got off the bed. He yelped when he jumped and then stood very still with his back slightly arched and his head lowered.

She got off the bed and kneeled before the dog. Taking his head in her hands she tried to figure out where his pain was coming from.

"Right, we're going to the vet".

She quickly pulled on some slacks and grabbed her wallet and cell-phone. Chris tried to follow Sara but walked with stiff legs and kept his head down.

"It's OK boy. I'm right here".

Gently leading him out of her apartment, they took the elevator down. She was unsure of how to pick Chris up to put him into the car without hurting him as it was clear that he won't manage it by himself. She ended up scooping him into her arms, one arm supporting his chest and the other his bum. He whimpered and fiercely whipped his tail in circles as if to gain balance but it worked. Sara rushed to the driver side and took off. Very rarely in her life had she felt as helpless as she did just then. Fortunately there was a vet just one block away from her apartment. Chris and Sara often passed the practice on their runs and it dawned on Sara that she had never bothered asking who his usual vet was. She stopped at the practice and left the dog in the car, rushing inside to get help.

There was people waiting in the reception area and a man in a white coat was just coming through the consultation room on the other side. The receptionist started saying something to Sara but she looked at the vet and said "My dog's very sick. He's in my car."

The vet put the clipboard he was holding down. "Nadine please check on Brutus, he's in recovery"

One of the reception staff got up to go and the vet followed Sara outside.

"What's wrong with your dog?"

No hello or introductions, the vet got directly to the point. Sara was very grateful.

"I don't know, he seems to be in pain but I don't know where. He's reluctant to jump and didn't eat his food last night."

They reached her car and Sara unlocked it. The vet opened the back door to have a look at Chris. Before the vet had even touched Chris, he started snarling and growling fiercely. Pulling his lips back, exposing his teeth.

Sara stood back surprised.

"I'm sorry, he doesn't like strangers but he's never reacted like this before."

While Sara had been talking, the vet had gotten completely into the car with the distressed animal. He was talking soothingly to the dog whose growling had subsided somewhat. Chris kept lifting his lip every now and again but actually allowed the vet to touch him. Everything seemed to be going well when there was a yelp followed by a vicious growl and snap. Sara heard Chris's jaws snap shut and imagined all sorts of bloody horror transpiring in her car. Yet when the vet got out, he seemed calm and collected, without any apparent injuries .

"He has bladder stones that caused a blockage of his urethra. In other words he can't pee. I'll have to sedate and catheterize him to relieve the blockage and the flush out the bladder. He'll have to stay the night with us. I'll go get the sedative, I'll give it to him in the car, he'll be calmer that way."

Without saying anything else or even looking her in the eye, he turned around and walked back to the practice. Sara stood perplexed. She had just met someone with worse people skills than Grissom.

The vet returned promptly with a syringe. He asked Sara to open the other back door and hold Chris's head while he injected him. The vet put the used syringe in his coat pocket and, before Sara or Chris had time to realize what was going on, scooped the dog into his arms and set off towards the practice. Still baffled by the man's lack of people skills, Sara slammed the door shut, locked her car and hurried after the vet. She was just in time to hurry into the swing-door of one of the consult rooms before it swung shut.

"He'll probably get nauseous," the vet said as he carefully placed Chris onto a steel table covered with a gray blanket. "That's just a side effect of the sedative. The sedative also act as a muscle relaxant and can sometimes relieve the urethral muscle spasm on its own; so he might pee by himself. I'm going to check on another patient and will be back shortly."

He only glanced at Sara occasionally, but kept looking at Chris, almost as if he was hoping to see something more to help him assess his patient. The vet turned around and left.

Sara was left alone in the room with the dog and could do nothing more but stroke his head gently as she spoke to him softly. The dog, a little dazed, kept looking around – clearly confused by where he was.

"It's OK boy," Sara said with a sigh. "I know about as much as you do."

A woman with untidy bushy hair caught in a band stuck her head in the door and blinked when she saw Sara.

"Oh I sorry. I thought Dr. Becks might be in here."

"He was here just a moment ago, but then he left." Sara felt stupid saying it.

"Right. Sorry about that," the woman smiled and came into the room "I'm Lucy. One of the nurses. Dr. Becks doesn't have the best of people skills, but he's an excellent veterinarian. Gets on better with the patients than with the owners."

"Yeah. Reminds me of my boss." Sara smiled at Lucy who glanced at Chris and then moved to the door again.

"Let me check what he wants done and I'll be right back." She bustled out but her exit wasn't as abrupt as her bos's.

True to her word the nurse came back promptly with a clipboard.

"What's your dog's name? Have you been with us before?"

"It's Chris. And no, we haven't been here before."

"Ok, will you please fill out this form for me so I can update our system? Dr. Becks says Chris has an obstructed bladder. He should be back shortly."

Sara missed more than half of the sentence as Chris half got up and then started to heave.

"Don't worry," Lucy said quickly before Sara could raise the alarm. "It's the sedative kicking in. Here, I'll get it." She passed Sara the clip board and grabbed a hand full of paper towels from the nearby roll, quickly cleaning up the mess.

Chris lay back down and Sara could see he was becoming woozy. She quickly filled in her details and that of the dog and handed it back to Lucy just as Dr. Becks came back into the room and went directly to Chris again, checking him over.

"Has he vomited yet?" He asked to no one in particular.

"Yes, just now." Lucy answered.

"Good, bring me a gurney and we'll take him to the theater".

"The theater?" Sara asked alarmed, looking from Dr. Becks to Lucy.

"Standard procedure. We might need to give him some general anesthesia and we will have to put him on a drip". Lucy explained and then dashed out the door.

It felt like an iron vice had clamped over her heart "Can I come with him?" Sara asked "Please?"

The thought of leaving Chris was excruciating.

"No," came the curt reply as the vet continued to listen to Chris's heart.

Lucy came back into the room with a gurney.

"Please. He's a rescue dog, he was badly abused and he doesn't easily trust people."

Finally the vet looked up from his patient to consider Sara.

"Please?"

"I don't take owners with me into the OR. I don't need them keeling over. Then I have two patients to deal with."

"I won't keel over I can promise you. I'm a crime scene investigator. I have a pretty strong stomach."

Chris whined and Sara stroked his head. The vet eyed them both through narrowed eyes.

"Fine, but if you hit your head when you pass out, I'm not stitching you up."

Sara's relief was almost like a rush as she nodded and steeling herself as she did when dealing with a particularly grizzly crime. She had faith that she wouldn't pass out but the way her week had been going, there was no way of telling how the universe might decide to ruin her day even further.

* * *

**Despite her alarm, Sara had found the procedure fascinating and could not help but draw similarities between how things worked at the veterinary hospital and a normal human one.** She had watched silently as Dr. Beck dealt with the blockage in Chris's bladder and treated him for the infection that he had. His crew was very efficient and Lucy had explained what he did every step of the way. When they were done, Dr. Beck disappeared without much ceremony, leaving Lucy to deal with the post operation care. Sara watched wordlessly as the nurse dealt with the catheter that they had placed in Chris and injected medication into his IV line.

"Will he be okay now?" Sara asked as Lucy started cleaning the equiptment that they had used. The woman smiled at her and nodded.

"Yes," she said. "We're giving him a broad spectrum antibiotic to deal with the infection and quite a lot of fluids so that his system can produce a lot of urine. Later we'll remove catheter to see whether he can urinate by himself. We'll keep on monitoring him, don't worry."

She transferred Chris's IV bag to the stand of the gurney, and then she and Sara moved Chris back onto the waiting gurney. He was starting to wake up, and lifted his head weakly.

"You did great boy. Feeling better?" Sara spoke to him as they wheeled him to the recovery room.

Once there Sara and Lucy put Chris into one of the waiting cages and Sara crawled in next to him.

"Is it ok if I stay with him for a while?" Sara asked Lucy who smiled and nodded encouragingly.

"I can't see why not. You're the first person Dr. Becks allowed to watch a procedure, so I doubt that he will object to you staying with him now. I'll be back to check on Chris in a bit. He has a soft spot for rescued animals."

Sara lay down next to Chris who licked her face and even wagged his tail feebly.

"It's ok boy, get some rest."

She used her jacket as a pillow and watched the dog's breathing even out, thinking that this was a fitting way to spend her off day considering how absolutely terrible her week had been. Her mind turned first to Dr. Beck and then, inevitably to Grissom who shared such similarities with the veterinarian. Not wanting to think about her boss, Sara closed her eyes and tried to relax and force her mind to silence.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

Sara woke from the beeping of a drip pump. For a moment she was confused as to where she was, but then she saw Chris and remembered. He was lying on his chest, his head resting on his feet. The moment she moved, he raised his head and gave her a big soppy doggy kiss to say hello. Sara was surprised to find that they were both covered by a grey doggy smelling blanket, though Chris had mostly shrugged his off.

Sara smiled at him briefly and turned on her back just in time to see a lady came tip-toeing in.

"Oh, sorry," she whispered. "Dr. Becks gave strict instructions not to disturb you. I'm Susan, the night-nurse." She spoke as she changed the empty drip bag for a new one. Then she replaced the full urine bag as well."Can I get you anything? Some coffee maybe?"

Sara glanced at her watch, not completely ready to answer yet. It was 1 am. She was astounded that she had managed to fall asleep. Not to mention that it had almost been more peaceful than in her own bed. She scooted out of the cage and got up. As she stretched Chris tried to get out as well but the nurse motioned to him to stay, closing the gate behind Sara.

"No sorry boy, you have to stay put," Susan spoke kindly then turned to Sara. "Look I'll stay with him if you just want to run to the loo or something."

Her words made Sara aware of her own discomfort and she shifted, nodding gratefully.

"Ok, I'll be quick. Thanks."

She left the room and it was only on her way back that she realized she had forgotten her cell-phone and purse in the car. With all the commotion of their arrival, she'd completely forgotten about it.

Quickly grabbing her stuff from her car, she also grabbed the new forensics journal she hadn't had time to read yet. She knew there was no way she'd sleep now.

To her dismay, there was a bunch of new text messages and 5 missed calls on her cell. All the missed calls were from Grissom. Sara frowned and felt unease settle in her stomach.

She read the messages first. They were all from Greg. The first was from when the night shift had just started.

_Hope ur having fun, Griss is stalking round like a bear with sore tooth._

Next came about an hour later.

_Heads up. think Griss gonna call u in. We have a tripple._

Then followed two missed calls from Grissom, he didn't leave a voice mail, and the text messages from Greg continued.

_At least someone is having fun. Smiley face x2. G is biting everyone's heads off._

_I'll never tease you again if you can come tame the monster._

_U ok?_

Followed by more missed calls.

She quickly sent a text to Greg .

_Chris was admitted to hosp. Sorry. Forgot phone in car. Everything's fine. _

Then , with a tight knot in her stomach, she phoned Grissom. The line rang a few times before he answered without any grace.

"Sara, where the hell have you been? I've been trying to reach you all night!" He barked over the line.

Sara was glad for the heads up from Greg or her temper would have flared immediately. As it were she could feel herself getting angry anyway. It was her night off and, as far as Grissom was concerned, she was spending it with a friend.

"I took a friend of mine to hospital," she said coldly. "He had bladder-stones. I forgot my phone in my car, I'm sorry."

She didn't know why she apologized and she wished she could take the words back the moment she said them, it made her angrier that once again she was over talking to him. _Can't I keep anything to myself?_

But then she could hear him sigh tiredly over the line, the sound was filled with so much strain and emotion, and somehow so intimate that she felt her anger melt away.

"Is he ok?" Grissom asked in a softer voice.

"Yes, thank you, they relieved the obstruction and he's awake."

She fell silent and an awkward silence settled over them.

"Look," she broke it. "Do you need me to come in?"

At the start of the call, Sara had no intention of even offering to go in, but she knew now that she would if he asked her. No second thought about it. She would go anywhere if he asked it of her.

"No, it's ok. Stay with your friend. I got Sofia to help". _Shit_

"Oh," was all she could think to say and the awkward silence descended again.

She wanted to stay with Chris, but the thought that Grissom had turned to Sofia hurt.

"Ok, so see you tonight then," she said and prayed that Grissom wouldn't hear the pain and defeat in her voice.

"Ok, see you then."

And, with that - he rang off.

It was a very pensive Sara that returned to Chris's side. He whined with excitement and pleasure when he saw her and that at least warmed her heart. She scooted back into the cage, but spent a long time just stroking his coat before she could get herself to concentrate on the journal.

The night wore on and dawn broke lazily. At around six, Dr. Becks came in.

"How is he doing?" he asked Sara, who put her journal down to study him.

"Good. I think, he seems normal and much more himself."

Dr. Becks nodded and started turning away. Sara would've been offended if it was any other person but she had started to know the doctor's mannerisms.

"Dr. Becks, when will he be able to go home?"

The vet glanced back and eyed her ruefully, studying her properly for the first time."I'm sorry. My wife keeps telling me to be more of a people person. We will remove his catheter this morning and as soon as he urinates by himself he can go home." He stood back, looking at the pair in the cage.

"Did you stay the whole night?" He asked Sara and for the first time, she saw something how kind his face looked when he smiled.

"Yes. Thanks for allowing me to."

"Chris is a lucky dog." He paused awkwardly. "What is your name by the way?"

Sara grinned. This man reminded her so much of Grissom, it was almost scary and painful.

"Sara Sidle, please to meet you and thank you for saving my dog."

"Jonathan Becks. And you're welcome." Then he turned and left.

At around ten-ish Lucy came to remove Chris's catheter and Sara took him to sit outside on the grass with her. Sara never knew she could get so excited over a dog peeing, but she was ecstatic when the border collie urinated against a tree. The bladder-stones were actually cystein-crystals and, beside the antibiotic course Chris needed to finish, he also needed to go on a special diet to prevent this problem in the future. Sara paid the vet bill, which was considerably less than she expected considering the care Chris received, and bought him his new food.

On their way home Sara remembered Mrs. Milligan for the first time. Feeling extremely guilty for only thinking of it now, Sara called her and filled her in. She took it much calmer than Sara expected and brushed over Sara's apology for phoning so late. She also insisted on paying half of the vet bill. Sara laughed and said it wasn't up for discussion.

At home Sara took a nice long hot shower, before crawling into bed with the dog by her side. The shaven area on his leg felt weird and Sara kept stroking it till Chris tucked his leg under his head and gave her a _look_.

"Ok sorry. Message received." Together, they drifted off to sleep.

She wasn't very tired and wasn't surprised when she woke again after only an hour. It was still a good few hours before the start of her shift, but she started getting ready anyway. She planned on getting some work done on the poaching case, as had been her plan for the weekend. She dropped Chris off at Mrs. Milligan's who was overjoyed to see him again. Happy that he was alright, Sara went to work.

Just as she reached the lab, her phone rang and she was surprised to see that it was an international call.

"Sara Sidle," she answered cautiously.

"Sara, It's Wollie. Wollie Wolmerans. Listen are you busy or can you talk?"

"No I can talk, go ahead Wollie." She had trouble saying his name as he pronounced it.

"Right. We just made a bust and I found a whole lot of passports with USA visa's issued to them. Thing is, I know for a fact that some of these guys have criminal records."

He fell silent as if expecting Sara to say something.

"I assume that should not have happened?"

"It is very difficult to get a US visa in the current climate, and almost impossible if you have a criminal record. Someone is greasing palms and pushing favors. I'vehad my suspicions for a while, and I have nailed a guy working at the Department of Internal affairs. But someone from the American side must also be involved and my hands are tied on the South African side. All this bureaucratic crap. Can I send you what I found so far? Someone is into it up to their necks."

"Yes please." Something that had been bugging Sara the whole conversation suddenly clicked in her mind.

"Wollie, what time is it there?"

"Just after midnight. I couldn't sleep and have been raking my brain over this damn visa business. I hope I haven't caught you at a bad time. It's late afternoon there right?"

"Yes, just after 3. Look, get some sleep and I'll mail you if I find anything."

"Cool, cheers."

He rang off before Sara had the time to say goodbye, but she was very familiar with the nervous energy that could take hold of you when you suffered from insomnia.

All thought of what Wollie had just told her flew out of her mind when she reached the locker room and saw Grissom coming the other way. He looked like a bus had run him over, it had obviously not been a good night, and he was probably set to pull a triple. His clothes were rumpled and he had dark circles under his eyes, something he wasn't prone to get. He was walking determinately towards DNA and was frowning deeply at the file in his hands. It accentuated the cleft in his chin. Even in this state Sara felt her heart rate quicken.

"Hi Griss. How's the case going?"

He looked up and was genuinely surprised to see her, Sara saw something bright flash over his face before he drew the veil back down.

"Not so good." He said taking a deep sign. He glanced at his watch and grimaced at the time.

"Need any help?"

Eying her gratefully he passed her a yellow slip of paper.

"Robbery at a jewelry store on the strip. There were just so many cases coming in that this one kept being pushed back."

Taking the paper from Grissom Sara glanced at it.

"Say no more. I'll take it." She wanted to say more, she felt slightly guilty that she didn't come in last night, but he was already past her and into the DNA lab. Sara watched him for a moment before grabbing her kit.


	17. Chapter 17

_**AN: Happy New Year everybody and a belated Merry Christmas. Things were very busy for myself and my aid over the holidays but things should be back to normal concerning the posting schedule. Thank you for still reading and reviewing, it's much appreciated. **_

**Chapter 17**

To say that the uniform guarding the scene was irritated was a gross understatement. From the moment Sara arrived he barraged her with questions and accusations. Not to mention the owner, who was very eager to get his business back up and running. Between the two of them, they made quite a racket.

"Look, the lab's been really busy. I'm sorry but we try to prioritize our cases as best we can," Sara replied to a series of questions, hoping that it would get them all to back off. The cop retreated sullenly and kept muttering under his breath while the owner dramatically threw up his arms in air and lit another cigarette to continue his chain smoking marathon.

The only thing that was left to do was for the scene to be processed. Detective Brass had spoken to the owner to get a list of stolen items and had spoken to the supposed witnesses.

Sara got to work and was delighted to find a few drops of blood on the inside of one of the display cases that was smashed open. It looked like the perpetrator had nicked himself on a piece of broken glass as he was removing the jewelry. Sara reached for her phone to ask Brass to alert all the hospitals in the area to be on the lookout for a clean cut-wound but as it was well over twelve hours since the crime happened. She doubted that the perp would still be hanging around. She also found some dark blue, almost black fibers snagged on a piece of glass. There were a lot of fingerprints but mostly on the outside of the glass. As there were none on the inside, Sara doubted that they'd be relevant, but she lifted them anyway.

She had barely released the crime scene when the owner bustled in with a broom. There would be no use in revisiting this scene later.

Sara made a quick pit stop at a nearby deli she knew Grissom liked and got him a ready-made pastrami and cheese sandwich with a SuperC-Wake-Me-Up smoothie.

Back at the lab, she left the packet with the smoothie and sandwich on his desk and dropped off her evidence at the various departments.

As expected the fingerprints were a colorful mix belonging to the owners and most of the shoppers of the previous day. Avis drew silts, but she wasn't surprised. Even if one had a hit, all it would mean was that the person was in the shop at some point the previous day.

The fibers seemed more promising, as they were found on the inside of the display cabinet. They turned out to be dyed wool and Sara wondered who would wear a woolen sweater in the middle of summer in Vegas. Unless they were up to no good.

It was the DNA from the blood stains struck gold. Smirking as she looked at the results, Sara phoned Brass.

"Hi, it's Sara, I got a lead for you."

"Um, ok thanks. What case are you working on?" Brass sounded tired and Sara didn't blame him. He had been working just as hard as Grissom.

"The jewelry store heist on the strip. Grissom bumped it to me."

"Ah right. The jewelry-store case. Tell you the truth I'd forgotten about it. I'm with Grissom on the triple. What have you got?" Sara could imagine him rubbing his eyes.

"I found blood on the inside of one of the broken display cases. Matches Martin James. Released on bail two days ago."

Brass snorted. "Our boy works fast. What was he in for?"

"White collar stuff, he worked for an insurance company and was caught embezzled company money." Sara read of the screen.

"Ok, I'll put out a broadcast and have him brought in. Do you want me to come for the interview?"

"No I'm good. You concentrate on the murders."

"Ok, thanks Sara… Doesn't your shift start in 45min?"

This line of questioning made her more than uncomfortable, she had a feeling that Brass knew she was still working on the poaching case and that she came in considerably earlier than the rest of her team to do so. The fewer people knew about that the better.

"Oh, I just came in to catch up on some paperwork and to help Grissom. I'll let you know how it goes."

She rang off before Brass could have a chance to ask any more inconvenient questions. She knew she probably wasn't fooling him, but hoped that he would let it drop. At least for the time being.

**Thirty minutes later Martin James was escorted into PD**. Ten minutes after _that_ he was officially arrested for armed robbery. The sutures on his arm were fresh and, when confronted with the DNA evidence, he capitulated. Sara phoned Brass to tell him that at least one case was off his desk as she was sitting in the break-room drinking coffee and doing the final paperwork for the case before it was passed on to the DA's office.

"When I come in early I'm usually bored stiff"

Greg sat down next to her with a cup of his own personal coffee. She had been so engrossed in her work that she didn't hear him come in. She looked up and smiled at him as he enclosed his hands protectively around the cup.

"You came in early and solved a case before the official start of shift," Greg sounded mournful as well as amused. "I would offer you some off this but you obviously don't need it." He eyed her over the rim of his cup as he took a thoughtful sip.

"What doesn't she need?" Warrick asked as he joined them on the table.

"Some of this Kopi Luwak," Greg said and took a sip, smacking his lips in satisfaction.

"Isn't that the brand they make from the poop of the common palm civet?" Sara asked, sitting back.

"For your information the Luwak eats only the ripest coffee beans, and during the passage through his digestive system, the digestive enzymes help to bring out the flavor." Greg told them in a 'professor-giving-a-lecture'-voice.

"Yeah well you just keep your weasel poop-coffee separate from the normal stuff, thank you." Warrick told him shaking his head.

Greg opened his mouth to retort, but Catherine came bustling in.

"Hi guys. Nick and Grissom are still working that triple. He asked me to hand these out. Sara, you and Greg have a dead teenager at Summerfield High. Warrick, you and I have what appears to be a body-dump outside a hotel. Oh and Sara, you need to finish your case report for the Ross case."

"Um I'm pretty sure I did," Sara frowned. She was never late with her paper work, ever.

"Hey I'm just passing on the message," Catherine said, shrugging. "Someone must have misplaced it or something"

Grabbing their stuff the CSI's got to work.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

The phone call from Wollie Wolmerans kept playing through Sara's mind as she waited at a traffic light on her way to the crime scene. Greg was chattering, but she had toned him out.

She parked the Denali just as David pulled up with the Coroner's van and Brass met them at the crime scene, looking rumpled and in a foul mood. It was the football field of the local High School with the body of a boy lying on the football field, under the goal posts. Sara had seen a fair share of gruesome crime scenes, but this one was bizarre. A quick glance showed her that the entire neck of the victim seemed to be missing, and there were some ribs exposed in the chest cavity. The look permanently fixed in the eyes of the boy showed something between disbelief and shock.

"His name is Vincent Greeves. 15. Caretaker found him and phoned it in. Paramedics just pronounced." Brass's face was shadowed and Sara could hear the strain in his voice. It was always so much harder whenever children were involved and if there was disfigurement, even more so. As Brass's phone rang and he moved away to answer it, Sara sat on her haunches to survey the scene. After taking some photos, David transferred the body to a waiting gurney. The head was literally hanging by a tread and Sara tried to clamp down on her almost visceral response as she took more photos of the scene.

She immediately picked out a sulphur like smell in the air and the grass around the post seemed trampled, but that didn't give them much. The ground around the other post looked the same and it was most likely due to normal activity, rather than nefarious acts. What was of interest was that the ground around where the body was found bore multiple scorch marks. She carefully took photos and lots of samples from the area, even going as far as to dig out a small soil sample from the center of one of the marks.

Sara became aware that some teenagers were arriving with their backpacks, sitting on the stands to gawk at them. Catching Greg's eye, they wandered over to them. Some of the kids slunk away, but a few seemed curious and Sara decided to head for those.

"Hi there," she greeted a group consisting of two girls and a boy. They didn't bother replying but motioned to the commotion.

"What happened?" one of the girls asked. "Did somebody die?"

Sara didn't miss the almost hungry look in the girls eyes as she surveyed the macabre scene. _Strange conclusion to jump to_._ Let's see what her reaction is to the news._

"Yes. A boy named Vincent Greeves."

"Greeves? No way." The kids stared at the scene. David had already put the body in a body bag, and he and one of his assistants were loading it into the van. Sara watched with the kids.

"Did you guys know him?" Greg asked the group.

"Man, he was in history class with me," the boy answered. He seemed much more shocked than the first girl did.

"What happened?" He asked.

"That's what we're trying to figure out," Sara answered him. "You guys are at school pretty late. Was there a club meeting or something?"

"We were attending night school." The first girl answered, tossing her hair back in a self-important way. "It's for extra credits for early admission to college." She held Sara's eye it see if she was impressed.

"No kidding." Sara answered neutrally. "So you guys must be pretty smart."

The first girl got a superior smirk. Sara kept her face passive, inwardly shaking her head. _Surely I was never this obnoxious? _She glanced at the second girl who was still to speak and watching the scene with something between fascination and horror.

"So what do you think happened?" Greg asked.

"Vincent is like, a super jock. Who knows how he spends his time." The first girl answered with a sneer. "Not studying that's for sure." She finished off. "Listen, we have to go. I still have some homework to do."

"Yeah, sure thing." Greg said taking his notebook out of his pocket. "What's your names? If we need any more help or something."

After they had given their names, Sara and Greg watched them walk away.

"Were we ever that obnoxious in school?" Greg asked Sara echoing her earlier thoughts.

"I doubt it."

Greg raised an eyebrow and glanced at his notepad.

"That quiet girl's surname is Nieves." He pointed out.

"Ok, it that supposed to mean something?" Sara asked as they walked back to the Denali. The name sounded vaguely familiar but she couldn't place it.

"Well just that it's a pretty uncommon last name. There is an old Nieves family in Vegas. They go back to the mobster days. They still own a lot of the smaller hotels and casinos. I just wonder if there is a family connection."

Sara smiled. Greg's knowledge of old Vegas was legendary. Yet something kept niggling her mind, she knew she had heard or read that name mentioned before.

* * *

After dumping the soil and some of the grass samples with Hodges, both Sara and Greg made for the morgue, hoping that Hodges would be able to tell them what had caused the scorch marks. Sara was surprised to find both David and Doc Robbins with the body.

"It's not often I get in something I haven't seen before and you've pulled it off twice," Doc Robbins greeted them.

"How so?"

"Your boy here had his neck almost completely blown off, yet apart from his head he sustained no damage to the rest of his body."

"You mean like a bomb?" Greg asked incredulously.

"Well a very controlled explosion at least. Apart from the obvious, there isn't much wrong with him. He left a very fit corpse."

"Do you have any idea what might have caused it Doc?"

"None."

"What on earth were these kids doing?" Sara asked, frowning at the body.

"That's your job to find out," Doc Robbins replied with a smile.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

Brass knocked on the door of the Greeves residence where a middle aged man answered the door.

"Las Vegas Police," Brass said showing the man his badge. "I'm Detective Jim Brass and this is Sara Sidle from the crime lab. May we come in for a moment please?"

The man stepped back with wariness in his eyes and led them to the next room where a woman was sitting watching TV. He introduced himself and his wife simply as Mr. and Mrs. Greeves.

When the formalities were over, Brass slowly started explaining to them why they were there, doing most of the talking while Sara watched their reactions. Apprehension followed confusion and was replaced by shock and disbelief and finally grief.

Apparently Vincent and three of his mates were supposed to be studying at a friend's house that evening. A few quick phone calls revealed that most of the boys were missing. Brass had the parents of the one boy that did show up at his house bring him into PD.

Photos lined the walls of the Greeves house; mostly family photos of holidays, birthdays or momentous occasions. One picture in particular drew Sara's attention. It showed Vincent Greeves and a few other boys, all dressed in their football clothes standing in various poses around a massive male lion.

"Um, I'm sorry. Where was this taken?" Sara asked the stricken parents.

"At last year's quarter finals," Mrs Greeves answered tearfully.

"Where does the lion come from? Isn't it dangerous?"

"Oh no. It's a stuffed lion. It's the school mascot."

"Where did they get it?" Sara asked incredulously. All her research into the African wildlife trade made her acutely aware how difficult it is to bring such specimens legally into the States.

"An uncle of one of the girls in Vincent's class donated it to the school." Mrs Greeves studied the photo. "Does it have anything to do with my son?"

The mixture of hope and despair in the woman's eyes tugged at Sara's heart.

"No I doubt it. We are still investigating exactly what happened."

Sara didn't mention that it piqued her interest regarding another case.

* * *

"**I know that look. What are you thinking Sara Sidle?"** Brass asked as they got back in the car.

Sara hesitated before answering. She was pretty sure Brass already knew she was still looking into the poaching case.

"One of the girls me and Greg talked to at the school, her surname is Nieves. I recognized the name from somewhere and I think I know where. There was a Nieves mention in the files from South Africa. I just find it very coincidental that her uncle donated a stuffed lion."

"We don't know it was her uncle yet," Brass reminded her, swinging the car around.

Sara quietly replied with a steely look which made Brass sigh.

"You want to talk to the Nieves girl again, don't you?"

Sara opened her mouth to say something but Brass cut her off.

"I know, I know. Just keep all your questions pertaining to _this_ case. Or Ekclie will have a field day."

Sara gave him a lopsided grin.

"I'll set it up." Brass said.

* * *

**Back at the lab, Greg found Sara heading for trace. **

"Have you eaten anything yet?"

"No Mom," she teased, glancing at the papers in his hands. "What have you got?"

"Hodges came back with a result. He found traces of contains charcoal, sulfur and potassium nitrate, aluminum, iron, zinc and magnesium."

Greg looked at her expectantly.

"In other words, fireworks."

"Got it in one," Greg smiled as he passed her the piece of paper containing the results.

"And the samples from the vic's scorched clothes?"

"Same thing. But with strontium salts. Apparently that burns red."

"So these kids were playing with fireworks and something went wrong."

"Very wrong."

When Brass brought some of the other kids in, the whole story came out. In stops and starts the traumatized boys told the story. Vincent and a group of his friends were playing a game with the fireworks. They had to put a lit firework in their mouth and spit it out just before it exploded. Vincent accidently swallowed his. It would have been funny if it weren't so tragic. His death would probably be ruled a suicide…

You did become desensitized to loss of life working as a CSI. As a rule you dealt with people whose death could have been prevented. Natural causes were as a rule not the COD. But the senselessness of the death in this case was worse than usual. This kid played a bloody stupid game and died for it.

* * *

**Sara stood nursing a cup of coffee outside the school waiting for Melanie Nieves to arrive. **Brass had already finished his and stood examining his nails.

"What exactly is it you want to know from this girl?"

"Where her uncle got that lion from for starters," Sara replied taking a sip.

The coffee-house brew was much better than what was on offer in the break room. Although there were things floating around in ponds that would also be an improvement. Fortunately the bus stopped shortly thereafter. Sara saw Melanie hesitate when she saw them approaching her. Some of the other kids hung back curiously to hear what was being said. Glancing at them Sara took Melanie's arm and led her to a nearby bench away from the other students and carefully sat down next to her. The girl didn't look at her, but kept staring at her hands.

"Is it true that Vincent killed himself with a firecracker?"

"It seems so yes," Sara answered. "Will it be ok if we asked you some more questions?"

"I guess," Melanie answered with a shrug.

"Vincent played football, didn't he?"

"Yeah, he was our star quarterback."

"I saw a picture of him next to a stuffed lion," Sara broached the subject carefully, studying the girl's reactions.

"Yeah. It's our mascot. My uncle donated it to the school in my junior year." _Bingo_.

"Wow, who is your uncle?"

"Conrad Nieves"

"Where did he get it from?"

"I dunno, my uncle travels a lot. He and my Dad don't really get on well."

Melanie seemed to think for a moment.

"Does the lion have something to do with Vincent's death?"

"No, we're just tying up loose ends," Brass answered, looking pointedly at Sara

"Oh, ok then. Ah… listen I don't want to be late for class…"

"Yeah sure. We're done anyway. Thanks for your help."

Melanie gave then a sad smile and walked away.

"So, does that help?" Brass asked, watching Melanie's retreating back.

"Very much so. There is a _Christopher_ Nieves mention in the files from South Africa. He's an American who was arrested there last year during a sting operation that targeted poachers. His lawyers got him off, but the South Africans have been keeping a close eye on him ever since. They even flagged his passport."

"You think he could be related to this uncle?"

"Probably. It's not a very common surname. Should be easy enough to check."

* * *

**Sara was very quiet during the drive back. Brass let her think and drove in silence.**

"Detective Wolmerans gave me a call yesterday," she said finally. "He said they busted a poaching ring and found a whole bunch of passports. Many of them containing American Visas. Apparently it is very hard to get your hands on one of those. Wolmerans says that if you have a criminal record, it's practically impossible."

"So obviously they're fake," Brass replied, turning into the PD parking lot. "I read somewhere that South African passports among those that gets faked the most. Obviously they know what to do there."

"That's the thing. Apparently they're not. Wolmerans thinks someone on our side is being bribed to approve them."

"That could be a serious problem," Brass said, facing Sara fully. "It implies that Immigration or the State Department might be involved. You sure you wanna stick your head in _that_ beehive?"

"If I don't, who will? No one seems to care about this but me. Wolmerans says he tracked the people involved on their side, but can't do anything to the people involved on our side."

Sara ran her hand over her tired face.

"Thanks for coming with me Jim."

"Anytime. That's what friends are for, right?"

Sara smiled as she got out. The shift was over and the case was solved. She should go home and get some sleep before the next shift. She really should. Instead she logged onto the main network and drew all the information about the Nieves family she could find, copying this to her laptop to go through it at home. She requested a list of the employees at Immigrations that work with issuing visas for people from Africa. She also requested the travel information of Conrad Nieves and Christopher Nieves for the last few years. It would be interesting to see where they had been. It was probably a shot in the dark, but she couldn't think of anything else to do.

Then she went to check on the file from the Ross case. Everything was there, but her report. Sara frowned; she could vividly remember finishing the report. She thought she must have misfiled it. Digging out her personal case notes, she re-wrote it as best as she could remember. It unsettled her that she might have made such a basic mistake. She gave the lab a quick cursory glance, hoping to see Grissom, but he must already have gone home. The baggie of food she brought was gone from his desk, so he must have taken it.

When she got home, she first went to fetch Chris. He seemed his usual boisterous self, but Sara only took him for half their usual run. Sara didn't want to push him to hard just yet. Chris seemed reluctant to turn back home.

"Sorry boy. This is as far as we go today," Sara told him as they turned to go back to her apartment.

After a nice hot shower and some muesli Sara settled herself on her comfortable bed as Chris joined her.

"Right, let's see what we have."

The file on the Nieves made for some very interesting reading. Conrad Nieves owned many of the older casinos in Vegas. Not the big flashy ones on the strip, but some of the successful old standbys that have been going for years. Greg was right; it was a very old Vegas family business. Sara made a mental note to ask Greg for more information. Conrad Nieves had had numerous brushes with the law, but nothing very serious and no charges were ever filed. It painted the picture of a shrewd and calculated man skating on the edge of the law. Christopher Nieves however seemed the proverbial black sheep of the family. He had gotten himself into trouble in various countries, not just South Africa. He was supposedly staying in one of the family homes in Miami. Sara made a few notes to follow-up. Finally she sent an email to Wolmerans. Not that she had much to tell him, but it was more to let him know that she was following up on his hint.

There were several businesses registered to Conrad Nieves besides the hotels. One appeared to be travel agency. They specialized in organizing trips to Vegas from all over the USA and even from further afield. Sara went to their web-page. It had an icon for international guests. Clicking on that, Sara was given a list of all the services the company supplied. The guests would be staying in one of Nieves's hotels, the Rift Valley Hotel. They professed to be able to cater to special needs. Sara wondered what that could be. She had a feeling that if the poachers had a base in Vegas, it would be most likely in one of Nieves's hotels.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

Sara parked her Denali in the parking lot of the Rift Valley Hotel that was reserved for guests. She contemplated taking her department issue firearm with her but decided against it. She was just going to look aroun, and it wasn't as if she was there on official business. She did however take her CSI ID-badge with her.

The hotel was styled around an African theme with a strong colonial feel to it. Above the reception desk was a mounted head of an African Elephant, its tusks projecting over the heads of the reception staff. The overall scene was impressive but rather macabre. Sara wondered if she would have found it as disconcerting if it wasn't for her heightened awareness of animal massacring due to the poaching case. She didn't introduce herself as an investigator, but asked directions to the bar. There was a scattering of patrons in the lounge and bar, mostly of Asian or far-eastern decent. Sara was used to seeing lots of tourists in Vegas, especially in a casino. But, usually it was a more mixed group. She ordered a club soda and pretended to read a newspaper, all the time eyeing the guests in a non suspicious way. It wasn't long after she arrived, that Conrad Nieves himself entered chaperoning a large group of clearly very wealthy clients. It was somewhat out of sync with the setting and the location of the hotel. Sara would much more have expected a group like that to be entering the Bellagio or the Wynn. This hotel did not even have a casino. Obviously the attraction lay in something else.

Sara casually finished her drink and walked back to her car. As she was driving away from the hotel her phone rang.

"Sara Sidle," she answered.

"Miss. Sidle, it's Kobus Gertenbach. We met earlier concerning a case involving some South Africans."

_How could I forget,_ Sara thought wryly.

"Yes, I remember. What can I do for you Mr. Gertenbach?"

"I think we need to talk. Can you meet me at…. Say… Pete's Coffee? It's close to your police department."

"Yes I know where it is. When?"

Questions were firing through the back of her mind. _Why was he in Vegas? And why would he suddenly call her just as she was leaving the Rift Valley Hotel?_

"Would now suit you? Only I think it's rather urgent."

"Ok," she said, already planning the route. "I can be there in fifteen minutes."

Sara felt uneasy about this but her curiosity won out. She also considered herself a pretty good reader of people, and the first impression of Kobus Gertenbach had been good…

* * *

**When she arrived, Kobus Gertenbach was already seated at a corner table**. He got up as she came in and even drew out the seat for her.

"Thanks for meeting me Miss. Sidle."

Gertenbach's accent was strange on the ear and he always seemed to have laughter bundled up just below the surface. Like he was privy to the punch-line of a joke no-one else was. But now he looked deadly serious and his eyes seemed to carry more strain than it did last time she saw him. Sara waited while Gertenbach searched her face till he seemed to come to a decision.

"Wolmerans tells me you are still looking into the rhino poaching case."

It was more a statement than a question. She nodded slightly, the feeling of uneasiness returning.

"I can't tell you how much that implies. Basically no-one is interested in pursuing these cases. Wollie and I have been working on it for years. Agent Smith isn't the first person they have had killed." The honesty and respect displayed on Gertenbach's face placated some of her nervousness. "However we feel compelled to warn you. These are very dangerous people. And they tend not to play by the rules. Wollie phoned me to say that you are looking at Nieves. When I saw you at the Rift Valley just now I thought I had better give you the heads up."

Sara narrowed her eyes. "What were you doing at the Rift Valley? I didn't see you."

"I was tailing Nieves," Kobus explained quickly. "Wollie had a tip that some of his favorite clients were on their way into Vegas."

"Why didn't you contact me?" Sara asked indignantly. She hated it when she was kept out of the loop. Who were these South Africans to decide to tail people in _her_ city? In a case that she had put so many hours into?

Gertenbach must have seen some of this reflected on her face, as he added in the most serious tone she had heard him use yet. "These people killed Smith."

His eyes darkened and Sara saw anger and sorrow fly over his face.

"If you want to continue with this investigation, I feel it's my duty to give you the heads up. These people don't play by the rules and they stoop very low. There is absolutely no pressure on you to continue. No-one will think any less of you if you decide to drop the case now. If you do decide to pursue this, and I sincerely hope you do, just know what you're getting yourself into."

"I don't think I could drop this case," Sara answered truthfully.

"Ok," Kobus Gertenbach gave her a beaming smile. "Agent Scott from Interpoll and I have been working together for a while now. You probably met her already."

"Yes we did. Just after Agent Smith's murder. Mr. Gertenbach, are you working for Interpoll?"

He gave her a wry smile "No. I'm a detective from the South African Police Department. But I'm here working for a private company. They're paying me to track these guys down."

"Vigilantes?"

"No ma'am. Everything goes either through Wollie on our side or through Scott. I just tell them where to look. Ultimately the poachers, and more importantly the people they work for, must be arrested and tried by the law and it's important that we keep it above board. We just don't have the same resources these guys do. They have very deep pockets."

When she still didn't answer he added.

"And, we're Afrikaners. We don't always play by the rules either."


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21.**

The nightmare followed its usual routine.

She rushed through door after door…

But fortunately Chris woke her up before it could get any further. Hygiene conscious and saliva phobic as she was, Sara was grateful for the licks to her face as she stumbled to the bathroom. Sara felt a pain in her lower abdomen, but ignored it. She was good at ignoring pain. It felt similar to period pain, but duller and more localized to her right lower abdomen. It wasn't her time, but Sara's cycle had always been rather erratic so it wasn't impossible. She washed down two aspirins with some orange juice before taking Chris back to Mrs. Milligan's. She felt vaguely nauseous but put that down to the nightmare. Making sure she was stocked up on necessities and clean clothes, she headed in to the lab.

On the way she tried phoning Agent Scott again, but again it went straight to voicemail. The woman was devilishly hard to reach.

Setting herself up in the computer lab Sara was pleasantly surprised to see several emails in her inbox. Apart from the normal correspondence and notices about journal publications, there was one from Wolmerans, thanking her for the update. He was very interested in Conrad Nieves and asked for all the information the LVPD had on him. Sara gladly complied.

The second email was from Immigrations and contained a list of employees. One name in particular jumped out at Sara. Justine Nieves. She had been working there for five years. Sara added a note to the email to Wolmerans asking him to check the dates on the dodgy passports. Sara was sure Justine Nieves was involved with it. The Nieves name just kept popping up too often in this case for it to be coincidental.

Sara was unsure who to ask to look into Justine Nieves. She didn't really want to get anyone from the lab involved, also it was juristically problematic. She mailed a contact at the FBI, Kerry Gary, and gave a very brief outline of the case when someone approached the table

"You're here early Sidle." Ecklie made even that simple statement into a condescending question. "I thought you worked the night shift. I hope you're catching up on your paperwork. "

Sara had been so engrossed in her research she hadn't even noticed him entering the room.

"What are you working on?" he asked as he moved to stand behind her chair.

"Case reports," she answered smoothly.

The Hall-case was open on her screen. She waited for him to say something, to challenge her. But any further confrontation was curtailed by his phone ringing. He answered and left without even giving Sara as much as a glance. Sighing Sara went back to her research into Conrad Nieves. The last thing she needed now was another confrontation with Ecklie.

Conrad Nieves had been a very busy traveler. He not only visited China twice in the last two years, but went to Africa six times. The trend seemed to be to fly into South Africa via Cape Town, then travel up to Maputo in Mozambique or Harare in Zimbabwe where he would catch a flight to Dubai. From there he would then return to the States. Sara's geography was pretty good, but she still had to go look up where exactly those cities were. They both bordered South Africa. Sara typed a quick note to Wolmerans to ask his opinion.

She figured there wasn't much point in pretending to arrive with the others, so she went to wait for them in the break room. She ate her apple while catching up on the forensic journal she received in the mail yesterday. She still felt a bit nauseous but ignored it.

Grissom arrived first with Greg close on his heels. Greg was trying to get Grissom to swap a weekend with him, but the older man wasn't budging.

"Hi guys. The coffee is fresh. I brewed a new pot."

The irritation with his antics was evident on Grissom's face and Greg obviously picked up on it.

"Two cups of coffee coming-up boss," he piped and jogged over to the coffee pot.

Sara watched Grissom carefully as he took a seat opposite her. Apart from his brief irritation at Greg, he seemed to be in a remarkably good mood. She marveled at how well he could separate himself from his cases. He and Nick had worked a horrific triple, but no trace of the strain he must have felt showed on his face as he casually picked up the evening paper and gave it a cursory glance before flipping to the crossword puzzle. Sara wondered if the calm exterior was just a façade, if deep down such cases did rattle him, but she pushed the thoughts down. Even if he did, he wasn't interested in her support. Greg handed her a cup of coffee, giving her a strange look. She realized that she had been staring at Grissom.

Again. She quickly tried to cover her embarrassment by taking a sip. Grissom absentmindedly took a sip of his own coffee. Oblivious to everyone around him. The rest of the team ambled in.

"Give a ten letter word that describes the property of certain gels to be viscous in its natural state, yet become more fluid when agitated," Grissom asked no one in particular, totally engrossed in his cross-word puzzle.

"Where's Nick?" Catherine asked, taking a seat next to Sara.

"I gave him the night off." Grissom answered, folding the newspaper away "Right. Since we're all here." He took the familiar yellow case slips out of his pocket

"Sara and Warrick, you have gun-shot victim downtown," Grissom said handing Warrick the piece of paper. "Greg and Catherine, home invasion gone south."

"And you?" Catherine asked teasingly.

Grissom smiled brightly,the brightest Sara had seen in a long time.

"I'm giving evening lectures at Western LVU on entomology."

For the life of her Sara couldn't understand why, but she felt intensely jealous and sad. It was as if he was going to find a new bright young student to mentor. As if she was no longer sufficient. She knew it was silly and childish and completely irrational to think like that, but she could hardly help it.

"Enjoy,".she said as she got up to leave.

Something in her voice must have betrayed something of the turmoil she was feeling, because Grissom gave her a surprised look and opened his mouth to speak. Then thought better of it and settled on a plain "Thank you," spoken to her back.

"Oh, by the way I think the term you're looking for is thixotropy," she replied.

Sara tossed her half-eaten apple in the trash, she wasn't really hungry anyway.

Greg trotted after her and caught her arm.

"You did submit the case report for the Greeves case right?"

Sara stared at him baffled.

"Yeah off course."

"Oh. The DA assigned to the case gave me an earful for it being missing. They must have made a mistake. Don't worry, I'll let him know."

Sara stared after him. Once was coincidence, twice definitely not.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22**

**The scene was almost sterile.** The victim, a middle aged man, lay face down on the floor, with a single gunshot wound to the chest which had a clear exit wound in his back.

Detective Vega nodded his welcome as they came in and gave them a quick summary.

"Edward Keen. 45. Lived alone and worked from home. Neighbors heard a gunshot and hid in the basement, calling 911 from a cell phone."

The apartment was in pristine condition. Nothing seemed out of place. Donning some gloves, the CSIs got to work while waiting for the coroner. The bullet had hit the brick wall after leaving the victim and had shattered on impact. Sara took photos, but there wasn't much else evidence to be had. They searched the room with a fine tooth comb, but the bullet casing was nowhere to be found. The killer probably took it with him, Sara mused.

Only pros did that.

They moved to the other rooms in the apartment, working systematically. The bed was freshly made with a battered Da Vinci Code copy from Dan Brown lying on the bedside table. A folded piece of paper served to keep the place – it appeared to be a old shopping list. The kitchen was clean, with a cup and plate left in the drying rack. There was nothing to indicate that another person had been in the apartment. The trash can contained a tissue, empty beer can and discarded candy wrappers. There was no sign of forced entry and the door had been left unlocked, presumably by the killer. There was a distinct lack of physical evidence. The victim's personal computer was bagged to be taken to the lab.

The victim apparently ran an internet company from his home. Hopefully it would have something on it.

The pain in her side was getting worse, and Sara mentally went through her locker content. She was sure she had some Tylenol or something in there. Sara was putting away her kit in the Denali when her phone rang. It was from a blocked number.

"Sara Sidle."

"Sara, it's Kerry – from the FBI. Sorry for phoning you so late."

"Hi Kerry. No it's no problem I work the night shift. What's up?"

"Good. I followed on the email you sent me, the one about Justine Nieves. Well, it turns out there has been quite a few discrepancies coming out of her office. We are going to bring her in. I just wanted to say thanks for the tip. How did you get onto it anyway?"

"I was working a case that put me into contact with law enforcement in South Africa. They confiscated a bunch of passports with US visas. He thought it suspicious so he let me know."

"Holy crap. Well, it constitutes a real security risk, so thanks."

"Anytime."

She rang off, winching as she slipped the phone back into her pocket.

Warrick gave her a questioning look as she got into the car.

"You still working the poaching case? I thought it was closed long ago."

Sara gave him a bland look.

"Right. What was that about dodgy passports and visas?"

"They were found in South Africa, so I let my contact at the FBI know."

"Who, Agent Culpepper?" Warrick asked incredulously.

It was no secret that Grissom had nothing but disdain for the man, and Warrick found it hard to believe that Sara of all people should go to him.

"Of course not. Agent Kerry Gray." Sara frowned. "She just called to let me know they are looking at someone, that's all."

"Ok. Good for you girl. Just so long as Ecklie doesn't know."

"Why would it matter?" Sara could hardly contain her irritation. "Our job is to investigate crimes and chase criminals. What can notifying the FBI about a possible national security risk have anything to do with Ecklie?!"

"Wow easy. I'm not the enemy Sara. I'm just saying. You're not exactly his favorite person"

"Feeling is mutual. Look can we just get back to the lab please?" She had to find those Tylenol's in her locker…

* * *

**The autopsy didn't reveal much.** The bullet wound was a through and through and couldn't tell them much. From the GSR burn pattern on the shirt, Sara deduced that the killer was standing about two feet from the victim when he fired. Based on the size of the wound tract and the damage inflicted, Doc Robbins hazarded an educated guess that the gun was probably a 9mm. But since the bullet shattered on impact, they had no way to be sure. Some bullets were designed to stay in the body and cause maximum damage, such as .40 and .45. Sara felt pretty sure they could rule those out for the time being.

"What is up with the vic's hand?" Warrick indicated to the left hand of the body. It had a sickly yellow tinge to it.

"Long term smoker." Doc. Robbins replied. "The nicotine stained his hand. You should see what it did to his lungs."

Warrick was working with Archie on the vic's laptop. Sara resolved to do some ballistics research. Bobby Dawson said he'd meet Sara in the Ballistics lab. The bullet had hit a single layer brick wall that was painted white. Sara was interested in knowing if it was possible to narrow down which gun was used by doing an experiment of comparing how different bullets fragmented in brick. She and Bobby were going to shoot some bricks.

Sara grabbed two Tylenols from her locker and swallowed them down with bottled water. She knew she shouldn't do that on an empty stomach but she felt too nauseous to eat. She swallowed a Clopamon tablet as an afterthought.

Bobby had set up the experiment with a few weapons that use 9mm ammo and was commonly used. They knew the victim was standing about a foot from the wall when he was shot and the killer stood about two feet away. The tests would be done from three feet to see if they could replicate the crime scene in the lab. Bobby chose an American tactical Pistol, a Beretta semi-automatic pistol, a Thunderback, a Bersa Thunder pistol, a Colt and a Glock for the test as they were the most common. There were many other potential weapons but Sara felt confident in Bobby's choice. One by one they fired the 9mm bullets into the brick wall, but to Sara's dismay, all of the bullets shattered or disintegrated on impact. It took them hours and the constant sounds of gunshot were giving her a headache. The Tylenol had done squat for the abdominal pain.

Warrick came to find them just as they were finishing up.

"What are you guys doing?" He wanted to know with a smile.

"Trying to figure out what gun might have been used. But we're striking out. You?"

Sara peeled of her gloves and earplugs and sat on the bench, gripping her left side. Bobby was busy putting away the weapons they had just used.

"No luck either. We checked his computer. He ran a sales company online. As far as I can tell he did all of his business online. He played a few online games, but only on weekends. Apart from some soft porn, there isn't anything noteworthy on it. No angry emails. No threats. Nothing to go on." He then gave her a quizzical look "You okay? You look a little pale."

Sara hated feeling weak. Her whole life and entire career revolved around her being able to take care of herself. Plus she felt angry and frustrated with herself for not making progress in the case. Her work was her life.

"Yeah I fine. Just a cramp. Probably just need to eat something."

She wasn't hungry, quite the contrary, the thought of food made her stomach reel, but she wasn't about to tell Warrick that.

"Well let's go get something then," he indicated to the break room over his shoulder. "By the way, the fingerprints all came back belonging to the vic. Including those found in the trash can"

"Damn. And the DNA analysis of the tissue?"

"Also victim DNA."

"Great, so we have no suspect, no motive, no murder weapon and apart from the body, no evidence." Sara summed it up as they sat down in the plushy chairs.

"Maybe we missed something at the scene?"

"We were there for hours Warrick. Do you think we missed something?" She was touchy but tried to keep her temper, realizing it was because of her abdominal pain.

"No. I spoke to Vega. None of the neighbors really even knew the guy. No one ever visited and he only left his house occasionally. No one has a clue as to what might have happened."

Closing her eyes, Sara ran a hand over her eyes. Fighting to ignore the pain and keep down the building nausea.

"Maybe we should go ask Grissom?" She suggested. She could think of nothing else.

"You feeling ok?" Warrick asked again, Sara wasn't exactly the type of person to willingly ask for help.

"I will if you stop asking," she snapped getting up. "Do you have a better idea?"

"Nope, talking it out with Grissom seems like a plan."

When they came into his office, Grissom was doing paperwork, listening to music through his earphones. He smiled when he looked up and saw them come in. He frowned when he looked at Sara, but any question he might have had died on his tongue when he saw the look on her face. Warrick outlined the case and their work so far while Grissom listened intently.

"Honestly I don't think there is much more you could do. Sometimes there's nothing more we can do."

"How can that be your answer?" Sara asked searching his eyes. "That's not nearly good enough"

"There isn't anything more to do," Grissom answered gently. "Look, shift is over. Go home, get some sleep. Next case will go better."

Sara held his eyes and felt her own beginning to water. Again she hated herself for her weakness. She felt bile rising in her throat. Leaving Warrick, she stormed out of Grissom's office. She urgently needed to reach the ladies bathroom. In her rush, she wasn't looking where she was going and almost walked slap bang into Ecklie.

"What the hell have you done Sidle?"

Sara had to mentally shift gear and scanned the last few hours for any possible transgressions. Ecklie however didn't give her time to find her bearings.

"Did you interrogate the Nieves girl on her own without her parents or legal representation?"

Sara realized what the man was talking about.

"The Vincent Greeves case? We spoke to all his friends."

"Did you also grill them on the doings of their uncles? Conrad Nieves came to see me. He is a very important man in the community and a close personal friend."

Ecklie folded his arms over his chest in an aggressive stance.

Sara was formulating a reply, but she had a more pressing problem she didn't have as much control over as showing her dislike for Ecklie. Unable to help herself, she bent double and violently vomited onto the floor, all over Ecklie and his trousers. A small part of her said she should've enjoy this more, but she was feeling far too miserable to care much. Mumbling an apology, she pushed passed the lab director and rushed to the bathroom. This time she made the toilet but only just. Not that there had been much in her stomach to start with. When she was done and had gathered some sense of her pride, Sara just grabbed her phone and keys from her locker and made a dash to her car. The pain in her flank was so bad it hurt when she walked on her right leg.

She had to stop twice on the way home to vomit unceremoniously next to the road.

Reaching her apartment she washed her face and hunted in the medicine cupboard till she found a single Stemetil. Taking that with a little water she sat on the bath rug next to the toilet and concentrated on keeping the pill down. She figured it was some form of food poisoning, probably that egg-mayo sandwich she ate the previous day and she would just have to wait it out. The Stemetil seemed to help and using a folded towel as a pillow Sara lay down on the bathroom floor. The tiles felt wonderfully cool through her clothes. She shrugged off her jersey and chucked it into the washing basket.

She woke up in order to vomit. Her head swam and she had difficulty in focusing. Obviously this was more serious that she had thought. She was felt disorientated and became slightly panicky. Taking her phone from her pocket, she reacted to the only clear thought in her mind.

_Phone Grissom._

He answered after the third or fourth ring, his voice heavy with sleep.

"Grissom."

"Griss, I think…..I'm." She could hear herself slur and closed her eyes to force a more coherent sentence out.

"Sara?"

"Um. It was off….I..um"

"Sara, are you drunk?"

It had pretty much the same effect as a slap to the face. She felt her entire body go cold and limb. _How does he not understand?_

"No, I….I think I'm…"

"Sara, how could you?" The angered dripped over the line. "Phone me when you're sober then we can talk" And he hung up.

Sara sat listening to the disconnected signal pounding in her ear. Her thoughts were all jumbled, but the fact that Grissom thought that she was drunk registered loud and clear. Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes. She really had thought that he knew her better than that. Dropping her phone on the bathroom floor, she just grabbed the keys to her Pruis and stumbled to her car. She had to really concentrate, and she prayed for quiet roads as she made her way to Desert Palm Hospital.

The guard at the door strode forward purposefully when she pulled up to the ambulance bay, but when he saw her falling to her knees to once again dry-heave, he shouted for some porters.

Sara was vaguely aware that someone were carrying her and laying her on a gurney. She realized she didn't even have her purse or drivers license with her.

Someone had shown a light in her eyes.

"What's your name? Can you tell me your name?"

"Sara Sidle," she said swallowing hard. "I called him…" She said as more tears leaked out of her eyes.

She assumed the person leaning over her must be a doctor and it was the last coherent thought she had before she slipped into unconsciousness.


	23. Chapter 23

_**AN: **__**Thank you all for reading and reviewing. It really means a lot to me. A huge thank you also goes out to my wonderful Beta. All the mistakes are mine I assure you. The song used is called Long way from happiness from Elton John. Sometimes you hear things on the radio. ;) **_

**Chapter 23**

Grissom was too worked up to go back to sleep after his conversation with Sara. _How could she do this to him_, he kept fuming. Finally giving up completely, he drove to the lab. He had mounds of paperwork that he kept avoiding, and the further he could banish the thought of one Sara Sidle from his mind the better. Not that it ever worked for long.

Several hours of paperwork did not improve his mood one bit. This was probably the part of his job he found most tedious. The team was starting to arrive, but there was no sign of Sara yet. Grissom wasn't very keen on talking to her anyway so he was content to wait. Brass came in with some files.

"What's eating you?" he asked, giving Grissom a critical look, probably seeing his irritation on his face.

"Are those the files I asked for?" Grissom was in no mood for a one-to-one chit-chat.

Brass shrugged and gave it to him, picking up on his friend's mood.

"Where's Sidle?" Ecklie burst into Grissom's office.

"Not in yet," Grissom answered not bothering to look up. "Why?"

"Firstly I would like an apology for vomiting all over me yesterday, secondly I would like to know why she saw fit to interrogate Conrad Nievies's niece." Ecklie fumed melodramatically counting it on his fingers.

"It was about the kid that swallowed a fire-cracker," Brass supplied answered matter-of-factly, smoothly dismissing the issue. "Sara's sick?"

"Since when do you yank kids off school busses?"

"We didn't. And we talked to all the kid's friends."

"Did you grill them about the whereabouts of their uncles as well?"

"When was Sara sick?" Brass ignored Ecklie non-pulsed.

Ecklie stared at Brass and then Grissom, meeting only his steely blue gaze.

"She's getting sloppy and her paper work was again not done. Get control of your team Grissom or _I_ will." Ecklie huffed and stormed out.

Brass glanced at Grissom, who was frowning as he picked up the phone, seeing the worry etched on his friends face.

"What do you know Gill?"

Listening to the dial tone on Sara's home line, Grissom reluctantly answered.

"She phoned me this morning. She sounded disorientated and confused and slurred some of her words. I assumed she was drunk," Grissom met Brass's gaze.

Brass didn't ask the obvious question. Grissom didn't bother to give an answer and covered his discomfort by trying Sara's cell instead. It went straight to voicemail.

Brass watched the myriad of emotions crossing his friends face and took the decision out of his hands.

"Have Catherine handle the shift. Meet me in the parking lot in ten minutes."

* * *

**Grissom kept trying to reach Sara all the way to her apartment complex as Brass drove.** When they got there they were alarmed to see that her Prius was missing from its parking lot.

"Why do you have a key?" Brass asked as Grissom let them into Sara's apartment.

"She gave it to me when she first came to Vegas. For emergencies."

"Uh-huh."

Grissom covered the red rising from his collar by moving to the rest of the apartment. Everything seemed in place. The apartment felt lived in but neat. Not that he'd been there many times before. Walking into her empty apartment felt like a violation of her trust. There weren't any dirty dishes in the sink. Tentatively Grissom looked in the various rooms, the whole place smelled like Sara. The bed was made and Grissom wondered if it had been slept in the previous night. Standing in Sara's bedroom for the first time and thinking of Sara in her bed was pushing emotions on him he really wasn't up to dealing with in that moment. Not that he ever felt comfortable indulging his attraction to Sara in any case. Fighting to keep a professional view, Grissom made his way to her bathroom. Sara's cell phone lay on the bathroom floor next to a towel. Lights flashing to indicate missed calls. The bathroom smelled keenly of sick. Grissom knew what an obsessive germaphobe Sara was. No way would she have left the bathroom like this if she had had a choice. The first cold fingers of panic started to play on Grissom's mind.

Grissom returned to the television room, bringing Sara's cell with him. There, he found Sara's purse and handbag on the mantle piece where they had been dropped. She had even left her sun-glasses.

"Is she seeing anyone at the moment?" Brass asked Grissom, not bothering to state the obvious.

"I think she is seeing a guy called Chris."

Admitting it to Brass made it more real that Sara was in a relationship with another man. It made Grissom feel incredibly old. Taking the cell from his friend's numb fingers, Brass scrolled through the contact list.

"No Chris."

Grissom knew he shouldn't really be cheered by this but he was, and the lead ball in the pit of his stomach seemed to dissipate somewhat.

"Any family in Vegas?"

"No."

"Ok, then we start at the beginning."

Taking out his own phone, Brass started phoning local hospitals.

Grissom tried to rack his brain for where Sara could be or where she could have gone. He replayed the previous night's conversation with Sara in his mind, feeding his growing anguish and guilt. Brass started with Spring Valley Hospital but no-one fitting Sara's description had been admitted in the last day. Grissom paced up and down while Brass phoned, unable to settle. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became; he couldn't imagine his life without Sara. Not that he really had a life _with _her as such, but she was near and just well, _there._ Many times he had stood on the brink of a decision to make more of his friendship, but every time his mind had over-ruled his heart. She was too young. She was too beautiful. She was too intelligent. It was inevitable that she would become bored with him, a reclusive old man and move on. He knew that it was unfair to superimpose his fears onto the real Sara, but he was unable to stop himself. Now standing in Sara's empty apartment, he knew that he would not be able to continue this strange status quo relationship. He craved a real relationship with her. Needed it. He resolved that when they found her, things were going to change.

That was, if they find her.

Brass tried St. Rose Dominican Hospital, Mountain-view Hospital, and finally Desert Palms.

At last Grissom could see that they had something when Brass's face lit up, only to be dropped into the depth of dread by Brass's next words.

"Surgery? When?"

Grissom listened intently, but the doctor was reluctant to discuss Sara's condition over the phone.

"We're on our way," Brass rang off as Grissom locked Sara's apartment behind them.

"What kind of surgery? Is she ok?" Grissom quizzed Brass breathlessly

"Apparently she had some sort of emergency surgery earlier this morning, but everything went well and she is in recovery now. That's all the doctor was willing to say."

Grissom was quiet for a long time.

"Drive with the lights on, will you Jim?"

Brass would have done so even without his asking.

* * *

**Grissom sat watching Sara sleep in the recovery room.** He wasn't very well versed in contemporary music, being much more at home with the Water-music Suite, yet the lyrics of a song he heard once kept bouncing through his head. He couldn't remember the artist or where he heard it, only that he though of Sara as he listened to it.

_I guess you're okay  
You seem to feel better these days  
I've known you for so long  
I've seen your brightness go from blue to grey_

You know that's true  
You can shake your head but I can prove  
I've seen things through your eyes  
You think you win but in the end you lose

And there's no second guess  
We take no second bets  
Chances are we're a long way from happiness  
Don't cover up the road to love  
With words that can't express  
The truth implies you're high and dry  
And you're a long way from happiness

_I'm one step behind  
Looking out for you all the time  
I'll put my faith in you  
And steer you clear of love that leaves you blind_

The lights in the room were dimmed and Grissom could see the moon through the window. He reflected that he had seldom seen her look so peaceful and relaxed. He had taken a look at her medical file. She had been rushed into surgery with a burst appendix. If left untreated, if would have proven fatal. The doctors said she must have endured unbelievable pain in the last 12-24hours. Grissom reflected how grey and pale she had looked in his office at the end of her last shift. He chastised himself for not recognizing her grimace and sweating for the pyrexia it had been. Not to mention the disorientation during their phone call.

Sara had apparently been awake earlier, enough so to provide the nurse with her basic information and insurance detail. The pages were filled in a small neat handwriting, not Sara's. On the page reserved for the contact details of family and friends, the nurse had drawn a line through it.

'_Patient has none'_ was written in red ink over the page. It nearly broke Grissom's heart.

"Oh Honey, I'm so sorry," he said, daring to take her hand in his much bigger one, something he would not have dared do if she had been awake.

He imagined some of his strength moving from him to her through their hands and it surprised him. He wasn't one for fanciful thoughts.

She swallowed dryly and frowned slightly as she began to surface from the anesthetic induced sleep. Grissom let go of her hand and grabbed a glass of water from the stand, knowing that a patient's throat was always dry and sore after general anesthesia, due to the endotracheal intubation.

She opened her eyes but squinted against the half gloom of the room.

"Hey," Grissom said softly. "Welcome back. Here drink some of this."

With Grissom's help she took a few sips of water.

"W'sn't drunk," she rasped, meeting his eyes.

Grissom had almost to bite back tears at her first words at seeing him

"I know Honey, I know. I'm… so sorry." It was very hard to say.

"M' car parked on ambulance spot," Sara tried to sit up, presumably to go move her car but Grissom gently pushed her back down.

"They've already moved it, just relax, ok?" She seemed to settle under his hands and lay back.

"k." Sara closed her eyes again and Grissom thought she was going to fall asleep again but she surprised him when she spoke.

"H'vn't drunk anything. Since that night," she slurred, keeping her eyes closed "I w'sn't drunk".

It was really important for her that he knew that. Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes that she was powerless to stop.

"W'sn't drunk."

Grissom used the back end of his finger to gently wipe away her tears, but it only seemed to distress her more.

"No, don't…" She squirmed. "…want you to see me like this." She whispered and turned her head slightly away from his hand.

Grissom was at a loss as to what to say or do. He wanted to kiss her and tell her that he loved her. That he finally knew what to do about _this_. But her tears unnerved him, and he ended up doing or saying nothing.

Again.

* * *

**Sara looked up at the ceiling**. She daren't look at the man sitting in the hospital chair next to her or she would lose the small measure of self control she had left. She was sure his actions were just that of a concerned friend, nothing more, and she didn't have the strength to fight the rejection that implied. She remembered her conversation with Agent James from Interpol and wondered if he would give her a job. She knew she wouldn't be able to carry on as she had before. It felt like the phone conversation they had earlier had finally flipped a switch in her mind; it was never going to happen between them.

The worst now was that she could feel Grissom watching her, his eyes searching as if he tried to see into her very soul. She hated that, hated feeling so exposed. There was very little pride in lying on a hospital bed, semi naked. She had to close her eyes and take a deep breath, slowly but surely regaining her composure. While she did this, she felt Grissom shift, panic for a moment as if he sensed that she was moving away from him… _Of course he doesn't, he doesn't care…_ and move forward to speak to her but right then, the nurse came in, bustling to look up on her medication.

"How's the pain, Love?" she asked, oblivious to the tension between them. "Do you need anything for it?"

Sara just shook her head. The last thing she needed was drugs to cloudy her thoughts. Not with Grissom sitting right next to her. _He was so close! _She could smell his aftershave and it threatened to overwhelm her.

"Ok, well , call me if you need me ok?" and with that the nurse left, leaving the silence to descend between them.

* * *

**When Brass entered the room a few minutes later, he could feel the tension between his two friends**. One look at their faces and he knew that Grissom had once again failed to bridge the gap between them.

"Your fan club is in en-route," Brass warned so the two of them could get their emotions back under control. Then he smiled at Sara."You gave us quite a scare," he told her.

"Sorry," she mumbled but managed a weak smile in return, even though it didn't reach her eyes.

Catherine came up behind Brass, followed by Greg, Nick and Warrick. Greg had a huge teddy-bear and a fist full helium balloons.

"To keep you warm when I'm not around," Greg joked as he sat the bear on an empty chair, making Sara smile.

Brass saw the vicious glare that Grissom shot the tech's way, clearly envious of his easy report with Sara.

"Apparently you're not allowed to eat these yet," Catherine said smiling, holding up a box of chocolates. "So we'll keep it in the break-room to celebrate your return."

Sara almost felt panicky. "I can work tonight; I just need to…"

"Oh no, doctors orders," Greg said. "We spoke to Dr. Heyns and he said you are to stay here tonight and maybe tomorrow. And you've been booked off for a week."

Brass didn't miss the look of horror that she shot both him and Grissom but they simply nodded as one.

"You had serious abdominal surgery girl. Plus you need pretty strong antibiotics," Catherine piped in. Her tone was light but her eyes belied the seriousness of the situation and her relief that Sara was ok.

Clearly they were making too much noise as the nurse from earlier came bustling in again. Now she didn't look nearly as friendly as earlier.

"I'm sorry but Miss. Sidle needs to rest. I'm going to have to ask you all to leave."

Brass could see Greg and Nick wanting to argue, but the look on the nurse's face made them think twice.

"Be good ok," they all greeted and left with Brass lingering in the doorway, waiting for Grissom

He had not left, but got up and took her hand in his. Brass left them to say what they should, going down to the car to wait for his friend.

* * *

**Sara watched the others leave and felt a moment's panic when Grissom stayed behind**. What does he want to do? What's he going to say? His touched seemed to burn her hand with intensity.

"Rest and get better ok?" He said gently, his tone achingly kind. "Then we need to talk." He looked into her eyes, but his was unreadable. As he was leaving, she saw him stop to talk to the nurse. Sara scanned the room for her clothes. No way was she going to stay here the entire night. She felt completely _fine_.

When the nurse came back a few minutes later, she injected something into Sara's intravenous drip-line. Almost immediately Sara could feel the effects of an analgesic and sedative coursing through her veins. She guessed Grissom must have told them to do it.

She had never felt so betrayed.

* * *

"**It's not like Sara to leave paper work uncompleted. Something funny is going on,"** Grissom said as Brass drove them back to lab. Brass had suggested they take her some of her stuff. He was staring out of the window, looking but not seeing.

"I think we need to look into it."


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24**

Sara's sleep was very restless and she woke numerous times during the night, often when one of the nurses came to check her vitals. When she did, she felt groggy and somehow disconnected from the rest of the world. She could still feel the effects of the sedative in her system. It made her feel vulnerable and helpless, two emotions she had spent her life avoiding. The betrayal she felt from Grissom's actions became more and more keen as the effects of the drugs wore off and she came to think more clearly. She had never felt so alone.

When she woke again, it was just before dawn to find Grissom sitting in a chair by her bed, reading a forensic journal. He smiled when he was that she was awake.

"How do you feel?"

"Ok. Hungry actually," she fell silent briefly. "Why are you here?"

"I brought you some of your stuff," he answered and held up a duffel bag. He had Catherine help him pack it, but didn't want to tell her that just yet.

Sara frowned. The fact that Grissom had gone through her stuff made her feel very weird.

"Uh thanks. Did you ask them to put something in my drip?"

Grissom looked down as he scooted his chair closer.

"Sara you needed to rest. You have been working way to hard lately."

It looked like he was going to say more, but then thought better of it. Sara searched his eyes, but found them unreadable. _So once again his actions is all about the good of the lab,_ she thought miserably. She wasn't really expecting it to be different.

"When can I go home?" she asked him, carefully keeping her emotions out of her voice.

"The doctor said you have to stay here at least till tomorrow…" Seeing the reaction on her face he quickly added; "Sara please. It's for your own good. I brought you some stuff to read."

Placing his peace offering next to her bed Grissom got up to leave and put his jacket on.

"I'll come check on you again before shift. Try to get some rest ok?" He asked as he reached the door. Sara, feeling confused and betrayed, drifted back to sleep.

When she woke again, it took her a while to find her bearings. Her head felt as if it was stuffed with wool and her abdomen was extremely tender. At the level of the incision, it felt like a knife had been plunged into her. Lying in the unfamiliar bed, she realised that she desperately wanted to go home. She suspected the doctor would be unwilling to discharge her, so she did not mean to ask. Fortunately her clothes were in a neat pile next to her bed, along with the stuff Grissom brought. Struggling out of the ridiculous hospital gown and into her clothes was a chore. Especially the jeans, as it was still painful to bend her right knee. But Sara was nothing if not determent. When she was done, she had to sit on the hospital bed for few minutes to get her breath back and wait the black spot in front of her eyes to clear, with her blood pounding in her ears. She felt dismayed that so little physical exertion affected her so severely. As soon as she felt better, she collected her stuff from her bedside table and made her way down the hall. Unfortunately Dr. Heyns spotted her and came over with a frown.

"Your' not supposed to be out of bed yet Miss. Sidle. Let me help you back to your room." He tried to take her arm but she stepped away from him.

"I had appendicitis right?" she said, hoping she didn't look as pale as she felt. "So after its removal all I need to recover is rest and a course of antibiotics correct? Well if you can give me the antibiotics, I would much rather do the rest part at home thank you."

Sara tone wasn't aggressive or condescending, but the doctor could see in her eyes that he wasn't going to be able to persuade her to stay.

"Wait here. I'll have the nurse bring you your meds and the forms you need to sign. But you understand you are checking yourself out against doctors orders," he said grudgingly. Narrowing his eyes he added "And you're not to return to work for a full two weeks. That's fourteen days, not two."

* * *

**When she was done with all the paperwork, Sara found her car in the reserved parking area right outside the door**. She was immensely relieved to find her car so close because the walk from her room had nearly exhausted her. She did however feel better than she had back in the hospital room. Lowering herself into the driving seat was very painful but she managed. She allowed herself only a moment to recover as she suspected the Dr. Heyns was observing her. She drove slowly and avoided gear change as much as possible. Once she reached her apartment complex, she stayed in her car for a full fifteen minutes to gather her strength. Using the lift to get to her apartment, her glee to be back home was short lived when she realised that she could detect subtle changes. As if someone had been in her flat. In her line of work you can't help but noticing these things, but she doubted herself as her recollection of the last time she was in her apartment was a little sketchy. But the of course Grissom and probably some of the team had been in here. She almost cringed at the thought of how her privacy was invaded, but they were the closest thing to a family that she has. Her phone battery was completely dead, so she plugged it in to charge. Turning it on, she saw she had quite a few missed calls. Deciding those could wait she made her way the bathroom. She felt drained, but desperately wanted to take a shower. The warm water soother her aching body, and stepping gingerly out of the shower Sara reflected how good it felt to be clean. Worming into her most comfortable frumps, she popped some of the antibiotics together with an aspirin and blessedly got into bed. She hardly felt as if she had slept before the ringing of her phone woke her. Staring at the screen for a full ten seconds she finally saw that it was Kobus Gertenbach.

"Miss. Sidle?" he answered the moment her line connected. "Hi. It's Kobus. Kobus Gertenbach. Look can we meet somewhere?"

The South African sounded worried. Sara was about to make an excuse and say no, but to her surprise she realised that she felt better. A whole _lot_ better actually. Glancing at her watch she realized she had slept for almost eight hours. Something which was almost unprecedented for her.

"Sure. When do you want to meet?"

"As soon as possible really. Actually where are you? Can I come pick you up? It really is important"

Sara thought for a moment, before giving Gertenbach directions to her apartment building.

The phone was ringing. Looking from the paperwork Gertenbach had spread over her coffee table, Sara glanced at her phone. The two of them had been laying out the case for the last twenty minutes. To her dismay, Grissom's name showed up on the caller ID.

"Do you need to take that?" Gertenbach asked her, studying her face with curiosity. Sara hesitated, then shook her head.

"It can wait" she replied, if Gertenbach could place the emotions in her voice he didn't comment on it.

Sara turned back to the documents in front of her. Apart from the details of the poaching case, with which she was intimately familiar, there were various documents concerning her. Photos of her at crime scenes, shopping for groceries, talking to the team outside PD. Someone had been keeping an eye on her.

"I recovered these last night. Please don't ask me how. Whether you want to or not, you're in their crosshairs," Gertenbach explained.

"So what you're basically saying is that I've become a person of interest for these people."

"I just wanted to give you the heads up."

Sara noted how he liked to use that phrase. Gertenbach started putting the documents back into his folder when her phone rang again.

Grissom.

Realising that she could not avoid him forever, Sara sighed and picked up her phone.

"Sidle."

"_Why are you not in the hospital?" _She could immediately hear the frustration in his voice.

"I'm feeling fine, thank you for asking." Sara could feel her hackles rising at his tone. How dare he presume to tell her what to do?

"_You had major abdominal surgery less than forty hours ago. You are well aware that you should still be in bed."_

Sara refrained from answering, unwilling to have a full-blown shouting match in front of Gertenbach, who was pretending to be very absorbed in his documents.

"Anything else?"

She could tell that the ice in her tone surprised Grissom as he was quiet for a long time.

"_The doctor put you on sick leave for 14 days….." _This time he tried to use a gentler tone, but it just infuriated Sara more.

"Fine," Sara snapped. "I won't come to work." She hung up as soon as she said it and turned back to Gertenbach.

"What are you planning to do now?" she asked Gertenbach as she watched him carefully.

"Well, there are some leads I want to follow. Why?"

She smiled at him, hoping she wasn't going to regret it.

"Because I'm tagging along."

* * *

**Grissom ran a weary hand through his hair.** His conversation with Sara went nothing like the way he planned it. Instead of conveying his concern for her, he had inflamed her temper and now her back was up. He had wanted to have a serious talk with her, explaining how he felt when he couldn't find her and above all apologize for the way he acted when she had phoned him sick. Brass was also urging him to tell Sara what they had found regarding her so called missing files. Grissom was still unsure if he wanted to tell her they were looking into that at all. In his mind it always went swimmingly, but whenever he had to face her, he became tongue tied and awkward. Hurting without intent and pulling away when all he really wanted to do was draw closer. He was tired, hungry and in desperate need of a shower, but instead he drove to Sara's place. He was afraid that if he waited, he would only procrastinate again and revert to the same rut as before. When he reached her apartment, he rushed to her door, not wanting to give himself time to over think the situation. But once at the door, it took him a few minutes to gather up the courage to knock. He wasn't certain she wanted to see him. After knocking for the third time, he gave up and walked back to his car. He couldn't blame her for not answering.

* * *

**Sara watched Gertenbach drive from the corner of her eye**. The big man seemed to fill the whole seat and his head grazed the ceiling. He kept his arms tucked in close to his body as if endeavouring to take up the least amount of room possible. Yet, he was a very good driver.

They were on their way to a long term storage locker used by the deceased Agent Smith. Gertenbach had only recently stumbled onto its existence and had yet to look into it. Sara had jumped at the opportunity to tag along.

_Anything to feel useful_.

Her surgery wound was nagging her a bit, but it was a breeze compared to what it was before. It was getting into and out of a car that proved very painful, but she thought that she had been hiding that very well.

"Don't we need a warrant?" Sara queried when they were outside the storage facility.

"I have the key." Gertenbach grinned. Somehow Sara got the impression that not having a warrant won't have proved much of a deterrent.

Gertenbach brandished the key and the clerk at the front desk who just waved them through, quickly returning to his soap opera on a small TV in his office.

The locker proved to be almost empty but for three big boxes full of files and paperwork. Sara removed a pair of gloves from her handbag (she hardly went anywhere without a few basic supplies) and offered some to Gertenbach who declined in favour of his own. His hands were considerably bigger than hers so her gloves wouldn't have fit anyway.

He sat on his haunches and pulled a file from the nearest box. It was covered in a thin layer of dust, but then again many things were in the desert. Gertenbach whistled softly through his teeth and he showed the file to Sara. It was a photograph of a pile of stuff, a grinning man standing next to it with his hands on his hips and a very satisfied grin plastered on his face. His eyes were shielded by an expensive pair of shades, but there was no mistaking Conrad Nieves. Sara squinted at the picture, trying to figure out what the pile of stuff was Nieves was so proudly standing next to.

"Is that…"

"A pile of ivory and rhino-horn," Gertenbach interjected. "Ja". His voice was bitter with disgust.

He picked another file at random and flipped through it.

"_Ag my donder man_! This is the exact same stuff Wollie showed me just before I left. When will all these bloody organizations learn to work together?"

He rammed the file back into the box where he had pulled it from.

"Right. I think we should take these with us. Don't you?"

Before she could reply, Gertenbach stacked the three boxes and picked them up. Normally Sara would have insisted on carrying at least one, if not two herself, but for once she was content to let others do the heavy lifting. Gertenbach waited while she locked up and the set of to the car.

"I think we should takes these to my place."

Sara had spoken as soon as the idea took shape in her head. Gertenbach looked as if he was about to argue but she quickly continued.

"I have time to go through them."

When Gertenbach still did not look convinced she sighed and explained. "I'm booked of on sick leave. I'm not to go into the lab for a few days"

"Why?"

Sara cringed inwardly. "I had an appendectomy, but I'm fine," she forestalled his objections. "And I need something to keep me busy."


End file.
